"A man must have grown old and..." - Quote by Arthur Schopenhauer

“Men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man IS contributes more to his happiness than what he HAS.”

“If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited.”

“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.”

“On with dance, let joy be unconfined, is my motto; whether there's any dance to dance or any joy to unconfined.”

“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men's necessities, while elsewhereshe was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim's shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”

“If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.”

“It is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon the summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of form and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little puff, leaving nothing behind but a memory - and sometimes not even that. I suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the night and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess that he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.”

“Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it.”

“Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.”