The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 34 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 1344
Thus all difference of individuality so entirely disappears, that it is all the same whether the perceiving eye belongs to a mighty king or to a wretched beggar; for neither joy nor complaining can pass that boundary with us. So near us always lies a sphere in which we escape from all our misery; but who has the strength to continue long in it?
The World as Will and Idea, passage 335
The philosophers of all ages may be said to be on the whole at one about this general knowledge of reason, and they have also given prominence to several very important manifestations of it; such as, the control of the emotions and passions, the capacity for drawing conclusions and formulating general principles, even such as are true prior to all experience, and so forth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2180
For the rest, I cannot here avoid the statement that, to me, _optimism_, when it is not merely the thoughtless talk of such as harbour nothing but words under their low foreheads, appears not merely as an absurd, but also as a really _wicked_ way of thinking, as a bitter mockery of the unspeakable suffering of humanity. Let no one think that Christianity is favourable to optimism; for, on the contrary, in the Gospels world and evil are used as almost synonymous.(72)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2767
45 See for example, “Immanuel Kant, a Reminiscence, by Fr. Bouterweck,” pg. 49, and Buhle’s “History of Philosophy,” vol. vi. pp. 802-815 and 823.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 583
The relation of reason and consequent is a necessity in all its forms, and indeed it is, in general, the source of the concept of necessity, for necessity has no other meaning. If the reason is given there is no other necessity than that of the consequent, and there is no reason that does not involve the necessity of the consequent.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 519
To establish the truth of such primary judgments directly from perception, to raise such strongholds of science from the innumerable multitude of real objects, that is the work of the _faculty of judgment_, which consists in the power of rightly and accurately carrying over into abstract consciousness what is known in perception, and judgment is consequently the mediator between understanding and reason.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1553
Many an author, if compelled to translate his pompous and obscure book into its little clear content, would be as utterly spoilt as this man if he had to go naked.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1301
I shall not refrain from mentioning, that I have known some persons of decided, though not remarkable, mental superiority, who also showed a slight trace of insanity. It might seem from this that every advance of intellect beyond the ordinary measure, as an abnormal development, disposes to madness.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 438
In the same way we have perfect knowledge in pure perception of the nature and constitution of the parabola, hyperbola, and spiral; but if we are to make trustworthy application of this knowledge to the real, it must first become abstract knowledge, and by this it certainly loses its character of intuition or perception, but on the other hand it gains the certainty and preciseness of abstract knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 341
The understanding has only one function—immediate knowledge of the relation of cause and effect. Yet the perception of the real world, and all common sense, sagacity, and inventiveness, however multifarious their applications may be, are quite clearly seen to be nothing more than manifestations of that one function. So also the reason has one function; and from it all the manifestations of reason we have mentioned, which distinguish the life of man from that of the brutes, may easily be explained. The application or the non-application of this function is all that is meant by what men have everywhere and always called rational and irrational.(12)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2541
With the entire abolition of knowledge, the rest of the world would of itself vanish into nothing; for without a subject there is no object. I should like here to refer to a passage in the Vedas, where it is said: “As in this world hungry infants press round their mother; so do all beings await the holy oblation.” (Asiatic Researches, vol. viii.; Colebrooke, On the Vedas, Abstract of the Sama-Veda; also in Colebrooke’s Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. p.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1971
Therefore instruction, improved knowledge, in other words, influence from without, may indeed teach the will that it erred in the means it employed, and can therefore bring it about that the end after which it strives once for all according to its inner nature shall be pursued on an entirely different path and in an entirely different object from what has hitherto been the case.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 590
When a criminal is examined, a _procès-verbal_ is made of his statement in order that we may judge of its truth from its consistency. But this is only a makeshift, and we are not satisfied with it if it is possible to investigate the truth of each of his answers for itself; especially as he might lie consistently from the beginning. But Euclid investigated space according to this first method.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2134
The result of this form of development is a somewhat melancholy disposition, the constant endurance of a single great pain, and the contempt for all lesser sorrows or joys that proceeds from it; consequently an already nobler phenomenon than that constant seizing upon ever-new forms of illusion, which is much more common.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2279
This asserts itself directly in consciousness through the fact that the doing of wrong is accompanied by an inward pain, which is the merely felt consciousness of the wrong-doer of the excessive strength of the assertion of will in itself, which extends even to the denial of the manifestation of the will of another, and also the consciousness that although he is different from the person suffering wrong as far as the manifestation is concerned, yet in himself he is identical with him.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 225
The keenness of the understanding in apprehending the causal relations of objects which are known indirectly, does not find its only application in the sphere of natural science (though all the discoveries in that sphere are due to it), but it also appears in practical life. It is then called good sense or prudence, as in its other application it is better called acuteness, penetration, sagacity. More exactly, good sense or prudence signifies exclusively understanding at the command of the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 368
(1.) The spheres of two concepts coincide: for example the concept of necessity and the concept of following from given grounds, in the same way the concepts of _Ruminantia_ and _Bisulca_ (ruminating and cloven-hoofed animals), also those of vertebrate and red-blooded animals (although there might be some doubt about this on account of the annelida): they are convertible concepts. Such concepts are represented by a single circle which stands for either of them.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1962
The Greeks called the character ηθος, and its expression, _i.e._, morals, ηθη. But this word comes from εθος, custom; they chose it in order to express metaphorically the constancy of character through the constancy of custom. Το γαρ ηθος απο του εθους εχει την επωνυμιαν. ηθικε γαρ καλειται δια το εθιζεσθαι (_a voce_ ηθος, _i.e._, _consuetudo_ ηθος _est appellatum: ethica ergo dicta est_ απο του εθιζεσθαι, _sivi ab assuescendo_) says Aristotle (Eth. Magna, i. 6, p. 1186, and Eth. Eud., p.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1773
It is precisely this universality, which belongs exclusively to it, together with the greatest determinateness, that gives music the high worth which it has as the panacea for all our woes. Thus, if music is too closely united to the words, and tries to form itself according to the events, it is striving to speak a language which is not its own.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2805
If any one studies the Augustinian theology in the books “_De Civitate Dei_” (especially in the Fourteenth Book), he experiences something analogous to the feeling of one who tries to make a body stand whose centre of gravity falls outside it; however he may turn it and place it, it always tumbles over again.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1715
Thus we see in tragedies the noblest men, after long conflict and suffering, at last renounce the ends they have so keenly followed, and all the pleasures of life for ever, or else freely and joyfully surrender life itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2548
He who has attained to this point, still always feels, as a living body, as concrete manifestation of will, the natural disposition for every kind of volition; but he intentionally suppresses it, for he compels himself to refrain from doing all that he would like to do, and to do all that he would like not to do, even if this has no further end than that of serving as a mortification of will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1911
In our case this demand is necessary; for the breaking up of our one single thought into its many aspects is indeed the only means of imparting it, though not essential to the thought itself, but merely an artificial form.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1337
Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over willing, can produce this state under any circumstances.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2214
The justification of suffering is, that in this phenomenon also the will asserts itself; and this assertion is justified and balanced by the fact that the will bears the suffering. Here we get a glimpse of _eternal justice_ in the whole: we shall recognise it later more definitely and distinctly, and also in the particular. But first we must consider temporal or human justice.(73)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2405
The will to live, though still asserting itself, does not here depend any longer upon the particular phenomenon, the individual, but comprehends the Idea of man, and wishes to keep its manifestation pure from such a fearful and shocking wrong. It is a rare, very significant, and even sublime trait of character through which the individual sacrifices himself by striving to make himself the arm of eternal justice, of the true nature of which he is yet ignorant.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1696
Whoever accepts the view that has been expressed of the lyrical frame of mind, will also allow, that it is the sensuous and poetical knowledge of the principle which I established in my essay on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and have also referred to in this work, that the identity of the subject of knowing with that of willing may be called the miracle κατ᾽ εξοχην; so that the poetical effect of the lyric rests finally on the truth of that principle.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1445
This is confirmed _a posteriori_ by the fact that it is impossible to have a perceptible idea of matter as such, but only an abstract conception; in the former, _i.e._, in perceptible ideas are exhibited only the forms and qualities of which matter is the supporter, and in all of which Ideas reveal themselves. This corresponds also with the fact, that causality (the whole essence of matter) cannot for itself be presented perceptibly, but is merely a definite casual connection.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1951
Certainly the decision enters the sphere of the intellect altogether empirically, as the final conclusion of the matter; but yet it proceeded from the inner nature, the intelligible character, of the individual will in its conflict with given motives, and therefore with complete necessity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2703
The brute is entirely without the possibility of freedom, as, indeed, it is without the possibility of a proper or deliberate choice following upon a completed conflict of motives, which for this purpose would have to be abstract ideas. Therefore with the same necessity with which the stone falls to the earth, the hungry wolf buries its fangs in the flesh of its prey, without the possibility of the knowledge that it is itself the destroyed as well as the destroyer.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 872
All content which they receive, every phenomenon which fills these forms, contains something which is no longer completely knowable in its whole nature, something which can no longer be entirely explained through something else, something then which is groundless, through which consequently the knowledge loses its evidence and ceases to be completely lucid.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1187
In order to bring Kant’s mode of expression nearer the Platonic, we might say: Time, space, and causality are that arrangement of our intellect by virtue of which the _one_ being of each kind which alone really is, manifests itself to us as a multiplicity of similar beings, constantly appearing and disappearing in endless succession. The apprehension of things by means of and in accordance with this arrangement is _immanent_ knowledge; that, on the other hand, which is conscious of the true state of the case, is _transcendental_ knowledge. The latter is obtained _in abstracto_ through the criticism of pure reason, but in exceptional cases it may also appear intuitively. This last is an addition of my own, which I am endeavouring in this Third Book to explain.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 168
For the independence of the knowledge of causality of all experience,—that is, its _a priori_ character—can only be deduced from the dependence of all experience upon it; and this deduction can only be accomplished by proving, in the manner here indicated, and explained in the passages referred to above, that the knowledge of causality is included in perception in general, to which all experience belongs, and therefore in respect of experience is completely _a priori_, does not presuppose it, but is presupposed by it as a condition.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 931
By Idea, then, I understand every definite and fixed grade of the objectification of will, so far as it is thing-in-itself, and therefore has no multiplicity. These grades are related to individual things as their eternal forms or prototypes. The shortest and most concise statement of this famous Platonic doctrine is given us by Diogenes Laertes (iii.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2365
The boundless world, everywhere full of suffering in the infinite past, in the infinite future, is strange to him, indeed is to him but a fable; his ephemeral person, his extensionless present, his momentary satisfaction, this alone has reality for him; and he does all to maintain this, so long as his eyes are not opened by a better knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1113
The surprise, which was referred to above, at the infallible constancy of the conformity to law of unorganised nature, is essentially the same as the surprise that is excited by design in organised nature; for in both cases what we wonder at is only the sight of the original unity of the Idea, which, for the phenomenon, has assumed the form of multiplicity and diversity.(39)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1606
Allegories in plastic and pictorial art are, therefore, nothing but hieroglyphics; the artistic value which they may have as perceptible representations, belongs to them not as allegories, but otherwise. That the “Night” of Correggio, the “Genius of Fame” of Hannibal Caracci, and the “Hours” of Poussin, are very beautiful pictures, is to be separated altogether from the fact that they are allegories. As allegories they do not accomplish more than a legend, indeed rather less.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2137
But when finally everything is overcome and attained, nothing can ever be gained but deliverance from some sorrow or desire, so that we find ourselves just in the same position as we occupied before this sorrow or desire appeared. All that is even directly given us is merely the want, _i.e._, the pain. The satisfaction and the pleasure we can only know indirectly through the remembrance of the preceding suffering and want, which ceases with its appearance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1668
Indeed I must attribute greater value to biographies, and especially to autobiographies, in relation to the knowledge of the nature of man, than to history proper, at least as it is commonly handled.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2564
Indian literature, as we see from the little that we as yet know through translations, is very rich in descriptions of the lives of saints, penitents, Samanas or ascetics, Sannyâsis or mendicants, and whatever else they may be called. Even the well-known “Mythologie des Indous, par Mad. de Polier,” though by no means to be commended in every respect, contains many excellent examples of this kind (especially in ch. 13, vol.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2302
And because in ethics the will, the disposition, is the object of consideration, and the only real thing, the firm will to do wrong, which is only restrained and rendered ineffective by external might, and the actually committed wrong, are to it quite the same, and it condemns him who so wills as unjust at its tribunal.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2482
We have found that voluntary justice has its inmost source in a certain degree of penetration of the _principium individuationis_, while the unjust remain entirely involved in this principle. This penetration may exist not only in the degree which is required for justice, but also in the higher degree which leads to benevolence and well-doing, to love of mankind. And this may take place however strong and energetic in itself the will which appears in such an individual may be.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1279
Since the knowledge that pertains to genius, or the knowledge of Ideas, is that knowledge which does not follow the principle of sufficient reason, so, on the other hand, the knowledge which does follow that principle is that which gives us prudence and rationality in life, and which creates the sciences. Thus men of genius are affected with the deficiencies entailed in the neglect of this latter kind of knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2122
The pain which is at that period of time essential to our nature, and therefore cannot be shaken off, would, without the definite external cause of our suffering, be divided at a hundred points, and appear in the form of a hundred little annoyances and cares about things which we now entirely overlook, because our capacity for pain is already filled by that chief evil which has concentrated in a point all the suffering otherwise dispersed.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 365
That is to say, part of what is thought under one concept is the same as what is thought under other concepts; and conversely, part of what is thought under these concepts is the same as what is thought under the first; although, if they are really different concepts, each of them, or at least one of them, contains something which the other does not contain; this is the relation in which every subject stands to its predicate. The recognition of this relation is called judgment.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 902
Do we in the end understand more of the inner nature of these universal natural forces than of the inner nature of an animal? Is not the one as much a sealed book to us as the other? Unfathomable because it is without ground, because it is the content, that which the phenomenon is, and which can never be referred to the form, to the how, to the principle of sufficient reason.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2724
I have here introduced these dogmas of Christian theology, which in themselves are foreign to philosophy, merely for the purpose of showing that the ethical doctrine which proceeds from our whole investigation, and is in complete agreement and connection with all its parts, although new and unprecedented in its expression, is by no means so in its real nature, but fully agrees with the Christian dogmas properly so called, and indeed, as regards its essence, was contained and present in them.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1624
Allegory has an entirely different relation to poetry from that which it has to plastic and pictorial art, and although it is to be rejected in the latter, it is not only permissible, but very serviceable to the former.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1851
The individual, on the contrary, neither has nor can have any value for Nature, for her kingdom is infinite time and infinite space, and in these infinite multiplicity of possible individuals. Therefore she is always ready to let the individual fall, and hence it is not only exposed to destruction in a thousand ways by the most insignificant accident, but originally destined for it, and conducted towards it by Nature herself from the moment it has served its end of maintaining the species.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1912
The division of four principal points of view into four books, and the most careful bringing together of all that is related and homogeneous, assists the exposition and its comprehension; yet the material absolutely does not admit of an advance in a straight line, such as the progress of history, but necessitates a more complicated exposition.