Author
Arthur Schopenhauer
Genre
PsychologyPhilosophy
Last Read
November 13, 2024
Cover
Stars
★★★★★
"The Essays on the Wisdom of Life" from Arthur Schopenhauer. German philosopher (1788-1860). Originally published: 1851
Terms:
- A priori = knowledge that can be known without experience
- A posteriori = knowledge that can only be known through experience
- Metaphysical = the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality (vs. merely observable reality)
Context:
Although the book failed to sell, Schopenhauer's belief in his own philosophy sustained him through twenty-five years of frustrated desire for fame. He was undesired by women (explaining a lot of his views on women). His father committed suicide. Direct and pessimistic, Schopenhauer had a massive influence on Nietzsche, which is why I decided to read this one.
Quotes:
“For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it.”
“For intellect is fundamentally a hard-working factory-hand whom his demanding master, the will, keeps busy from morn to night. But if this hard-driven serf should once happen to do some of his work voluntarily during his free time, on his own initiative and without any object but the work itself, simply for his own satisfaction and enjoyment – then this is a genuine work of art, indeed, if pushed to an extreme, a work of genius.”
“The task of the novelist is not to narrate great events but to make small ones interesting.”
“Hope is the confusion of the desire for a thing with its probability.”
“He, on the other hand, who wants to be altogether uncommon, that is to say great, must never let a preponderant agitation of will take his consciousness over altogether, however much he is urged to do so. He must, e.g., be able to take note of the odious opinion of another without feeling his own aroused by it: indeed, there is no surer sign of greatness than ignoring hurtful or insulting expressions by attributing them without further ado, like countless other errors, to the speaker's lack of knowledge and thus merely taking note of them without feeling them.”
“So when a great mind is interrupted, disturbed and distracted it is capable of no more than a commonplace mind, because its superiority consists in concentrating all its forces on one single point and object, in the same way as a concave mirror concentrates all its rays, and this is precisely what noisy interruption prevents it from doing.”
Kindle Highlights
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