Personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue-a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion.
Arthur SchopenhauerPatriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.
Arthur SchopenhauerHuman existence is an error...it is bad today and every day it gets worse, until the worst happens.
Arthur SchopenhauerReading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.
Arthur Schopenhauer