The vanity of existence is ...

The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists. . . Time is that by virtue of which everything becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value.
The vanity of existence is revealed in the whole form existence assumes: in the infiniteness of time and space contrasted with the finiteness of the individual in both; in the fleeting present as the sole form in which actuality exists; in the contingency and relativity of all things; in continual becoming without being; in continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life consists. . . Time is that by virtue of which everything becomes nothingness in our hands and loses all real value.
 Arthur Schopenhauer

Quotes from the same author

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
A man of business will often deceive you without the slightest scruple, but he will absolutely refuse to commit a theft.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer
The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
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 Arthur Schopenhauer