Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was born on 22 February 1788 in Gdańsk, a city that would remain part of his biographical record even as his life and work unfolded elsewhere in the German-speaking world. He grew up as a citizen of the Kingdom of Prussia, an identity that situated him within the political and cultural currents of his era. He worked primarily in the German language, though he also made use of French in portions of his writing.
Schopenhauer received his education at several institutions, among them the Ernestinum Gotha, the University of Göttingen, and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Over the course of his career he occupied a range of intellectual roles, working as a philosopher, writer, university teacher, translator, and musicologist. His philosophical outlook is associated with the movement of irrationalism.
His written work includes two notable texts produced in German. The World as Will and Representation stands as one of his principal philosophical works. He also wrote Parerga and Paralipomena, a further contribution to his body of philosophical writing. Together these two texts represent the primary documented anchors of his output as a philosopher and writer.
Schopenhauer died on 21 September 1860 in Frankfurt. His career had taken him through multiple educational institutions and across several intellectual roles, from university teaching to translation and musicology, and his written output in German and French encompassed both systematic philosophical work and the essays collected in Parerga and Paralipomena.
Quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer's insights on:
The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.
Ordinary people think merely of spending time, great people think of using it.
Exaggeration in every sense is as essential to newspaper writing as it is to the writing of plays: for the point is to make as much as possible of every occurrence.
Each day is a little life every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
It is well-known that evils are alleviated by the fact that we bear them in common. People seem to regard boredom as one of these and therefore get together in order to be bored in common.
A man can be himself alone so long as he is alone … if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.