The Schopenhauer Cure - Irvin D. Yalom

“Life is something miserable. I have decided to spend mine thinking about that.”

“A person endowed with high and rare mental gifts, who is forced to accept a strictly utilitarian job, is like a precious vase decorated with the most wonderful images, but used as a kitchen pot.”

“Great suffering makes smaller ones impossible to feel, and, conversely, in the absence of great suffering, even the smallest worries and annoyances torment us.”

“A happy man is one who can avoid, once and for all, having to deal with the vast majority of his fellow humans.”

“If you do not want to be the toy of any scoundrel and the object of ridicule for any fool, the first rule is to be reserved and inaccessible.”

“We should treat any madness, failure, or human vice with indulgence, remembering that what we see before us are, simply, our own failures, madness, and vices.”

“Some cannot escape their own chains, yet they can still free their friends.”