"All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer By far the most quotable Arthur Schopenhauer, this derivative of a derivative book makes available to the public insightful, humorous, and sometimes irritating and politically incorrect, kernels of wisdom and insights from one of the iconoclastic philosophers of the 19th C. An academic who resented academia, Schopenhauer was among the first to recognize that the universe can be an irrational place, thereby enriching human understanding of the pessimistic and vain, yet essential, aspects of life. His influence is now evident in literature, philosophy, politics, and the arts. Even mathematical studies of complexity and chaos have benefited from the observation that there can be order in disorder just as there can be disorder in order. The quotes in this book will delight both the pessimist and optimist alike. Very insightful.