> From this vast pile of empirical data, Schopenhauer drew a simple maxim: “Do no harm; and help others to the extent you can.”

> This conviction led Schopenhauer to be an ardent abolitionist, a keen advocate of prison and asylum reform, and a fierce opponent of animal cruelty. It is curious to think that his beloved standard poodle, Atma, knew what men and women did not know: that his master believed in the care and concern for all living beings. At Schopenhauer’s funeral in 1860, his first biographer, Wilhelm Gwinner, suggested that “ordinary people saw the misanthrope in him,” but Schopenhauer “was full of compassion” for them. This may have been difficult for Schopenhauer’s contemporaries to perceive.