Reading Schopenhauer again, I have to say that he still is my favorite philosopher.
From him we have the following ideas:
No man can be in perfect accord with anyone but himself--not even with a friend or the partner of his life.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom.
Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided accordingly as a man's personal value is large or small.
That genuine, profound peace of mind, that perfect tranquility of soul, which next to health, is the highest blessing the earth can give, is to be attained only in solitude, and, as a permanent mood, only in complete retirement; and then, if there is anything great and rich in the man's own self, this way of life is the happiest that may be found in this wretched world.
A man is best off if he be thrown upon his own resources and can be all in all to himself. And Cicero goes so far as to say that a man who is in this condition cannot fail to be very happy.
The more a man has himself, the less others can be of him.
Ordinary people are sociable and complaisant just from the very opposite feeling: to bear others' company is easier for them than to bear their own.
A man, in the full sense of the word--a man par excellence--does not represent a fraction, but a whole number; he is complete in himself.
It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.
Almost all our sufferings spring from having to do with other people and that destroys peace of mind.
Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.
The love of solitude is not an original characteristic of human nature; it is rather the results of experience and reflection, and these in their turn depend upon the development of intellectual power, and increase of the years.
Speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age.
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