The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 10 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 1123
We must assume that between all these manifestations of the _one_ will there existed a universal and reciprocal adaptation and accommodation of themselves to each other, by which, however, as we shall soon see more clearly, all time-determination is to be excluded, for the Idea lies outside time.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1852
Thus Nature naïvely expresses the great truth that only the Ideas, not the individuals, have, properly speaking, reality, _i.e._, are complete objectivity of the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1416
This is the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. In the object they are not essentially different, for in every case the object of æsthetical contemplation is not the individual thing, but the Idea in it which is striving to reveal itself; that is to say, adequate objectivity of will at a particular grade.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 110
If any truth can be asserted _a priori_, it is this: for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience: a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it; and each of these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas; whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2722
Luther demands (in his book “_De Libertate Christiana_”) that after the entrance of faith the good works shall proceed from it entirely of themselves, as symptoms, as fruits of it; yet by no means as constituting in themselves a claim to merit, justification, or reward, but taking place quite voluntarily and gratuitously.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1688
And no one has the right to prescribe to the poet what he ought to be—noble and sublime, moral, pious, Christian, one thing or another, still less to reproach him because he is one thing and not another. He is the mirror of mankind, and brings to its consciousness what it feels and does.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2294
And because the reason which surveys the whole left the one-sided point of view of the individual to which it belongs, and freed itself for the moment from its dependence upon it, it saw the pleasure of an individual in inflicting wrong always outweighed by the relatively greater pain of the other who suffered the wrong; and it found further, that because here everything was left to chance, every one had to fear that the pleasure of conveniently inflicting wrong would far more rarely fall to his lot than the pain of enduring it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1678
On the other hand, the representation of the life of the individual shows us the man, as we see nature if we go about among her trees, plants, rocks, and waters.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1031
The more developed Idea resulting from this victory over several lower Ideas or objectifications of will, gains an entirely new character by taking up into itself from every Idea over which it has prevailed a strengthened analogy. The will objectifies itself in a new, more distinct way. It originally appears in _generatio æquivoca_; afterwards in assimilation to the given germ, organic moisture, plant, animal, man. Thus from the strife of lower phenomena the higher arise, swallowing them all up, but yet realising in the higher grade the tendency of all the lower. Here, then, already the law applies—_Serpens nisi serpentem comederit non fit draco._
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1184
If now we recognise its Idea in this animal, it is all one and of no importance whether we have this animal now before us or its progenitor of a thousand years ago, whether it is here or in a distant land, whether it presents itself in this or that manner, position, or action; whether, lastly, it is this or any other individual of the same species; all this is nothing, and only concerns the phenomenon; the Idea of the animal alone has true being, and is the object of real knowledge.” So Plato; Kant would say something of this kind, “This animal is a phenomenon in time, space, and causality, which are collectively the conditions _a priori_ of the possibility of experience, lying in our faculty of knowledge, not determinations of the thing-in-itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1945
But this is just the same thing as if we were to say of a perpendicular beam that has lost its balance, and is hesitating which way to fall, “It can fall either to the right hand or the left.” This _can_ has merely a subjective significance, and really means “as far as the data known to us are concerned.” Objectively, the direction of the fall is necessarily determined as soon as the equilibrium is lost.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 134
And in all the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, we shall find the same emptiness, and shall see that not time only but also space, and the whole content of both of them, _i.e._, all that proceeds from causes and motives, has a merely relative existence, is only through and for another like to itself, _i.e._, not more enduring.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 24
But the same disinclination to repeat myself word for word, or to say the same thing a second time in other and worse words, after I have deprived myself of the better, has occasioned another defect in the first book of this work. For I have omitted all that is said in the first chapter of my essay “On Sight and Colour,” which would otherwise have found its place here, word for word. Therefore the knowledge of this short, earlier work is also presupposed.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 345
When some one speaks, do we at once translate his words into pictures of the fancy, which instantaneously flash upon us, arrange and link themselves together, and assume form and colour according to the words that are poured forth, and their grammatical inflections? What a tumult there would be in our brains while we listened to a speech, or to the reading of a book? But what actually happens is not this at all.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1636
“And although it singes the wings of the gnats, Destroys their heads and all their little brains, Light is still light; And although I am stung by the angriest wasp, I will not let it go.”
The World as Will and Idea, passage 930
I make this passing reference to the matter here in order that I may be able in future to use the word _Idea_ in this sense. In my writings, therefore, the word is always to be understood in its true and original meaning given to it by Plato, and has absolutely no reference to those abstract productions of dogmatising scholastic reason, which Kant has inaptly and illegitimately used this word to denote, though Plato had already appropriated and used it most fitly.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1371
A few examples will help very much to elucidate this theory of the æsthetic sublime and remove all doubt with regard to it; at the same time they will bring out the different degrees of this sense of the sublime.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1881
Dogmas change and our knowledge is deceptive; but Nature never errs, her procedure is sure, and she never conceals it. Everything is entirely in Nature, and Nature is entire in everything. She has her centre in every brute. It has surely found its way into existence, and it will surely find its way out of it. In the meantime it lives, fearless and without care, in the presence of annihilation, supported by the consciousness that it is Nature herself, and imperishable as she is.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1209
Thus all investigations of these relations and connections lead back to his body, and consequently to his will. Since it is the principle of sufficient reason which places the objects in this relation to the body, and, through it, to the will, the one endeavour of the knowledge which is subject to this principle will be to find out the relations in which objects are placed to each other through this principle, and thus to trace their innumerable connections in space, time, and causality.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 733
But he would not understand the influence of the motives any more than the connection between every other effect which he sees and its cause. He would then call the inner nature of these manifestations and actions of his body which he did not understand a force, a quality, or a character, as he pleased, but he would have no further insight into it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2212
To express this the Hindus made the _lingam_ an attribute of Siva, the god of death. We also fully explained there how he who with full consciousness occupies the standpoint of the decided assertion of life awaits death without fear. We shall therefore say nothing more about this here. Without clear consciousness most men occupy this standpoint and continually assert life.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 106
Although we nearly at all times see the Gorgiases and the Hippiases uppermost, although the absurd, as a rule, predominates, and it seems impossible that the voice of the individual can ever penetrate through the chorus of the befooling and the befooled, there yet remains to the genuine works of every age a quite peculiar, silent, slow, and powerful influence; and, as if by a miracle, we see them rise at last out of the turmoil like a balloon that floats up out of the thick atmosphere of this globe into purer regions, where, having once arrived, it remains at rest, and no one can draw it down again.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2418
Both seek constantly in some way or other to connect happiness with virtue, the former either by means of the principle of contradiction or that of sufficient reason, and thus to make happiness either identical with or the consequence of virtue, always sophistically; the latter, by asserting the existence of other worlds than that which alone can be known to experience.(79) In our system, on the contrary, virtue will show itself, not as a striving after happiness, that is, well-being and life, but as an effort in quite an opposite direction.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 94
To philosophy they are assigned with their wives and children, and in spite of Petrarch’s _povera e nuda vai filosofia_, they have staked everything upon it. Now my philosophy is by no means so constituted that any one can live by it.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1626
If in plastic and pictorial art we are led from what is immediately given to something else, this must always be a conception, because here only the abstract cannot be given directly; but a conception must never be the source, and its communication must never be the end of a work of art.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2009
And, finally, in the case of man, only the resolve, and not the mere wish, is a valid indication of his character both for himself and for others; but the resolve becomes for himself, as for others, a certain fact only through the deed. The wish is merely the necessary consequence of the present impression, whether of the outward stimulus, or the inward passing mood; and is therefore as immediately necessary and devoid of consideration as the action of the brutes.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2250
This, however, already presupposes a community regulated by agreement—the State. The morally established right of property, as we have deduced it above, gives, from its nature, to the owner of a thing, the same unlimited power over it which he has over his own body; and hence it follows that he can part with his possessions to others either in exchange or as a gift, and they then possess them with the same moral right as he did.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 659
The many-sided view of life as a whole which man, as distinguished from the lower animals, possesses through reason, may be compared to a geometrical, colourless, abstract, reduced plan of his actual life. He, therefore, stands to the lower animals as the navigator who, by means of chart, compass, and quadrant, knows accurately his course and his position at any time upon the sea, stands to the uneducated sailors who see only the waves and the heavens.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2210
In this respect they were worshipped by the Greeks in the _phallus_, and by the Hindus in the _lingam_, which are thus the symbol of the assertion of the will. Knowledge, on the other hand, affords the possibility of the suppression of willing, of salvation through freedom, of conquest and annihilation of the world.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 78
I have already explained in the preface to the first edition, that my philosophy is founded on that of Kant, and therefore presupposes a thorough knowledge of it. I repeat this here. For Kant’s teaching produces in the mind of every one who has comprehended it a fundamental change which is so great that it may be regarded as an intellectual new-birth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2723
So we also hold that from the ever-clearer penetration of the _principium individuationis_ proceeds, first, merely free justice, then love, extending to the complete abolition of egoism, and finally resignation or denial of the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 93
The efficiency of this quiet means is increased by the Corybantic shouts with which those who are at one reciprocally greet the birth of their own spiritual children—shouts which compel the public to look and note the air of importance with which they congratulate themselves on the event. Who can mistake the object of such proceedings? Is there then nothing to oppose to the maxim, _primum vivere, deinde philosophari_? These gentlemen desire to live, and indeed to live by philosophy.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 26
It seems to me, in fact, as indeed has already been said by others, that the effect these writings produce in the mind to which they truly speak is very like that of the operation for cataract on a blind man: and if we wish to pursue the simile further, the aim of my own work may be described by saying that I have sought to put into the hands of those upon whom that operation has been successfully performed a pair of spectacles suitable to eyes that have recovered their sight—spectacles of whose use that operation is the absolutely necessary condition.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2367
From this presentiment arises that ineradicable _awe_ common to all men (and indeed perhaps even to the most sensible of the brutes) which suddenly seizes them if by any chance they become puzzled about the _principium individuationis_, because the principle of sufficient reason in some one of its forms seems to admit of an exception.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2411
This concept is essentially relative, and signifies _the conformity of an object to any definite effort of the will_. Accordingly everything that corresponds to the will in any of its expressions and fulfils its end is thought through the concept _good_, however different such things may be in other respects.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2181
§ 60. We have now completed the two expositions it was necessary to insert; the exposition of the freedom of the will in itself together with the necessity of its phenomenon, and the exposition of its lot in the world which reflects its own nature, and upon the knowledge of which it has to assert or deny itself. Therefore we can now proceed to bring out more clearly the nature of this assertion and denial itself, which was referred to and explained in a merely general way above. This we shall do by exhibiting the conduct in which alone it finds its expression, and considering it in its inner significance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2011
The deed alone,—because as human action it always requires a certain deliberation, and because as a rule a man has command of his reason, is considerate, _i.e._, decides in accordance with considered and abstract motives,—is the expression of the intelligible maxims of his conduct, the result of his inmost willing, and is related as a letter to the word that stands for his empirical character, itself merely the temporal expression of his intelligible character.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2287
Hobbes himself characterises his completely empirical method of thought very remarkably by the fact that in his book “_De Principiis Geometrarum_” he denies all pure mathematics properly so called, and obstinately maintains that the point has extension and the line has breadth, and we can never show him a point without extension or a line without breadth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1207
It will be remembered from the preceding book that knowledge in general belongs to the objectification of will at its higher grades, and sensibility, nerves, and brain, just like the other parts of the organised being, are the expression of the will at this stage of its objectivity, and therefore the idea which appears through them is also in the same way bound to the service of will as a means (μηχανη) for the attainment of its now complicated (πολυτελεστερα) aims for sustaining a being of manifold requirements.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1734
That in some sense music must be related to the world as the representation to the thing represented, as the copy to the original, we may conclude from the analogy of the other arts, all of which possess this character, and affect us on the whole in the same way as it does, only that the effect of music is stronger, quicker, more necessary and infallible.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 849
Therefore, what appears for the idea as plant life, as mere vegetation, as blindly impelling force, we shall claim, according to its inner nature, for will, and recognise it as just that which constitutes the basis of our own phenomenal being, as it expresses itself in our actions, and also in the whole existence of our body itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1000
It exhibits, as the foundation of all its explanations, the universal forces which are active in all these causes and effects. It accurately defines, enumerates, and distinguishes these forces, and then indicates all the different effects in which each force appears, regulated by the difference of the circumstances, always in accordance with its own peculiar character, which it discloses in obedience to an invariable rule, called _a law of nature_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2716
Not only the dogmas referred to before, but also this last genuine evangelical dogma belongs to those which at the present day an ignorant and dull opinion rejects as absurd or hides.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2389
The highest reward, which awaits the noblest deeds and the completest resignation, which is also given to the woman who in seven successive lives has voluntarily died on the funeral pile of her husband, and not less to the man whose pure mouth has never uttered a single lie,—this reward the myth can only express negatively in the language of this world by the promise, which is so often repeated, that they shall never be born again, _Non adsumes iterum existentiam apparentem_; or, as the Buddhists, who recognise neither Vedas nor castes, express it, “Thou shalt attain to Nirvâna,” _i.e._, to a state in which four things no longer exist—birth, age, sickness, and death.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1829
Our philosophy will maintain the same _immanency_ in the case of action, as in all that we have hitherto considered. Notwithstanding Kant’s great doctrine, it will not attempt to use the forms of the phenomenon, the universal expression of which is the principle of sufficient reason, as a leaping-pole to jump over the phenomenon itself, which alone gives meaning to these forms, and land in the boundless sphere of empty fictions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 596
Instead of the demonstrations that fill geometry, the whole content of arithmetic and algebra is thus simply a method of abbreviating counting. We mentioned above that our immediate perception of numbers in time extends only to about ten. Beyond this an abstract concept of the numbers, fixed by a word, must take the place of the perception; which does not therefore actually occur any longer, but is only indicated in a thoroughly definite manner.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2627
It is a perfect example of the second path that leads to the denial of the will, not, as the first, through the mere knowledge of the sufferings of a whole world which one has voluntarily acquired, but through excessive suffering experienced in one’s own person.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 301
The principle of sufficient reason possessed as before an unconditioned validity, and the only difference was that the thing-in-itself was now placed in the subject instead of, as formerly, in the object. The entire relativity of both subject and object, which proves that the thing-in-itself, or the inner nature of the world, is not to be sought in them at all, but outside of them, and outside everything else that exists merely relatively, still remained unknown.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 976
Through thousands of years chemical forces slumber in matter till the contact with the reagents sets them free; then they appear; but time exists only for the phenomena, not for the forces themselves. For thousands of years galvanism slumbered in copper and zinc, and they lay quietly beside silver, which must be consumed in flame as soon as all three are brought together under the required conditions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1901
“Here sit I, form mankind In my own image, A race like to myself, To suffer and to weep, Rejoice, enjoy, And heed thee not, As I.”