The reason domestic pets are so lovable and so helpful to us is because they enjoy, quietly and placidly, the present moment.
Arthur SchopenhauerFor whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it.
Arthur Schopenhauer[T]he moralists of Europe [have] pretended that beasts have no rights... a doctrine revolting/gross/barbarous... on which a native of the Asiatic uplands could not look without righteous horror.
Arthur SchopenhauerA man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels against this, and feels that it cannot be true.
Arthur SchopenhauerHuman existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.
Arthur SchopenhauerIn order to increase his pleasures, man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs, which in their original state were not much more difficult to satisfy than those of the brute. Hence luxury in all its forms; delicate food, the use of tobacco and opium, spirituous liquors, fine clothes, and the thousand and one things that he considers necessary to his existence.
Arthur Schopenhauer