Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will.

For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

There is in the world only the choice between loneliness and vulgarity. All young people should be taught now to put up with loneliness ... because the less man is compelled to come into contact with others, the better off he is.

If at times I have thought myself unfortunate, it is because of a confusion, an error. I have mistaken myself for someone else... Who am I really? I am the author of The World as Will and Representation, I am the one who has given an answer to the mystery of Being that will occupy the thinkers of future centuries. That is what I am, and who can dispute it in the years of life that still remain for me?

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination.