Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.

It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institutions of private property.

Don't be discouraged if your children reject your advice. Years later they will offer it to their own offspring.

He who stands most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best.

I have learned this: it is not what one does that is wrong, but what one becomes as a consequence of it.

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.

Schopenhauer has analysed the pessimism that characterize modern thought, but Hamlet invented it