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Hence a man's intellectual as well as his moral qualities proceed from the depths of his own nature, and are not the result of external influences; and no educational scheme—of Pestalozzi, or of any one else—can turn a born simpleton into a man of sense. The thing is impossible! He was born a simpleton, and a simpleton he will die.

— Arthur Schopenhauer Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

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The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.

Parerga and Paralipomena (1851)

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

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Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars.

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Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

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Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Schopenhauer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.