The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 49 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 1049
Journal, reprinted in Galignani’s Messenger, 17th November 1855.) On the banks of the Missouri one sometimes sees a mighty oak the stem and branches of which are so encircled, fettered, and interlaced by a gigantic wild vine, that it withers as if choked.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 9
If it admits of being broken up into parts to facilitate its communication, the connection of these parts must yet be organic, _i.e._, it must be a connection in which every part supports the whole just as much as it is supported by it, a connection in which there is no first and no last, in which the whole thought gains distinctness through every part, and even the smallest part cannot be completely understood unless the whole has already been grasped.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1975
For motives to act, it is necessary not only that they should be present, but that they should be known; for, according to a very good expression of the schoolmen, which we referred to once before, _causa finalis movet non secundum suum esse reale; sed secundum esse cognitum_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1313
The distracted Ajax, King Lear, and Ophelia may be taken as examples; for the creations of true genius, to which alone we can refer here, as universally known, are equal in truth to real persons; besides, in this case, frequent actual experience shows the same thing.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 643
In order then that it may not lose itself in the endless multitude of particular judgments, it must make use of abstraction and think everything individual in the universal, and its differences also in the universal. It must therefore partly separate and partly unite, in order to present to rational knowledge the whole manifold of the world generally, according to its nature, comprehended in a few abstract concepts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1600
It is these successively appearing individuals, for the mass of posterity will always be and remain just as perverse and dull as the mass of contemporaries always was and always is. We read the complaints of great men in every century about the customs of their age. They always sound as if they referred to our own age, for the race is always the same.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2191
On the other hand, the will is often inflamed to a degree that far transcends the assertion of the body, and then violent emotions and powerful passions show themselves, in which the individual not only asserts his own existence, but denies and seeks to suppress that of others when it stands in his way.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 599
The stilted logical demonstration is always foreign to the matter, and is generally soon forgotten, without weakening our conviction. It might indeed be dispensed with altogether without diminishing the evidence of geometry, for this is always quite independent of such demonstration, which never proves anything we are not convinced of already, through another kind of knowledge.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 240
Illusion takes place when the same effect may be attributed to two causes, of which one occurs very frequently, the other very seldom; the understanding having no data to decide which of these two causes operates in any particular case,—for their effects are exactly alike,—always assumes the presence of the commoner cause, and as the activity of the understanding is not reflective and discursive, but direct and immediate, this false cause appears before us as a perceived object, whereas it is merely illusion.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 793
(Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibilium se habet, ita mens hominibus adest: idem namque est, quod sapit, membrorum natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni: quod enim plus est, intelligentia est.)(30)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 985
We have found it to be so in nature, which is without knowledge, and it is also precisely the same when motives and not causes or stimuli determine the point at which the phenomena are to appear, that is to say, in the actions of animals and human beings.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1908
And also, with regard to the life, the assertion and denial of which is our problem, we must insert a few general remarks connected with the will and its objects. Through all this we shall facilitate the apprehension of the inmost nature of the knowledge we are aiming at, of the ethical significance of methods of action.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2129
“_Æquam memento rebus in arduiis_ Servare mentem, non secus in bonis _Ab insolenti temperatam_ _Lætitia._”
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1425
Sometimes this possession of special beauty in an object lies in the fact that the Idea itself which appeals to us in it is a high grade of the objectivity of will, and therefore very significant and expressive. Therefore it is that man is more beautiful than all other objects, and the revelation of his nature is the highest aim of art. Human form and expression are the most important objects of plastic art, and human action the most important object of poetry.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1402
His personal happiness or unhappiness will not greatly affect him, he will rather be as Hamlet describes Horatio:—
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1454
Therefore the beauty, at any rate, of a building lies in the obvious adaptation of every part, not to the outward arbitrary end of man (so far the work belongs to practical architecture), but directly to the stability of the whole, to which the position, dimensions, and form of every part must have so necessary a relation that, where it is possible, if any one part were taken away, the whole would fall to pieces.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1471
In the mild climate of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where the demands of necessity were fewer and less definite, architecture could follow its æsthetic ends with the greatest freedom. But under a northern sky this was sorely hindered.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 221
Every force and law of nature, every example of such forces and laws, must first be immediately known by the understanding, must be apprehended through perception before it can pass into abstract consciousness for reason.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2060
So much with regard to the _acquired character_, which, indeed, is not of so much importance for ethics proper as for life in the world. But its investigation was related as that of a third species to the investigation of the intelligible and the empirical character, in regard to which we were obliged to enter upon a somewhat detailed inquiry in order to bring out clearly how in all its phenomena the will is subject to necessity, while yet in itself it may be called free and even omnipotent.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 765
We therefore who, for this very reason, are striving to extend the limits of our knowledge through philosophy, will treat this sceptical argument of theoretical egoism which meets us, as an army would treat a small frontier fortress. The fortress cannot indeed be taken, but the garrison can never sally forth from it, and therefore we pass it by without danger, and are not afraid to have it in our rear.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2108
But whatever nature and fortune may have done, whoever a man be and whatever he may possess, the pain which is essential to life cannot be thrown off:—Πηλειδης δ᾽ ῳμωξεν, ιδων εις ουρανον ευρυν (_Pelides autem ejulavit, intuitus in cælum latum_). And again:—Ζηνος μεν παις ηα Κρονιονος, αυταρ οιζυν ειχον απειρεσιην (_Jovis quidem filius eram Saturnii; verum ærumnam habebam infinitam_). The ceaseless efforts to banish suffering accomplish no more than to make it change its form.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2177
But this irremediableness is only the mirror of the invincible nature of his will, of which his person is the objectivity. As little as an external power can change or suppress this will, so little can a foreign power deliver it from the miseries which proceed from the life which is the phenomenal appearance of that will. In the principal matter, as in everything else, a man is always thrown back upon himself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1685
This is proved by the existence of many single songs by individuals who have otherwise remained unknown; especially the German national songs, of which we have an exquisite collection in the “Wunderhorn;” and also by innumerable love-songs and other songs of the people in all languages;—for to seize the mood of a moment and embody it in a song is the whole achievement of this kind of poetry.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 324
They live in the present alone, he lives also in the future and the past. They satisfy the needs of the moment, he provides by the most ingenious preparations for the future, yea for days that he shall never see. They are entirely dependent on the impression of the moment, on the effect of the perceptible motive; he is determined by abstract conceptions independent of the present.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 671
According to this, as I conceive the spirit of the Stoical ethics, their source lies in the question whether the great prerogative of man, reason, which, by means of planned action and its results, relieves life and its burdens so much, might not also be capable of freeing him at once, directly, _i.e._, through mere knowledge, completely, or nearly so, of the sorrows and miseries of every kind of which his life is full.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 764
We do not therefore combat it any further in this regard, but treat it as merely the last stronghold of scepticism, which is always polemical. Thus our knowledge, which is always bound to individuality and is limited by this circumstance, brings with it the necessity that each of us can only _be one_, while, on the other hand, each of us can _know all_; and it is this limitation that creates the need for philosophy.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 718
For although as yet etiology has most completely achieved its aim in mechanics, and least completely in physiology, still the force on account of which a stone falls to the ground or one body repels another is, in its inner nature, not less strange and mysterious than that which produces the movements and the growth of an animal.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1718
And its absence is certainly obvious, for in what has Ophelia, Desdemona, or Cordelia offended? But only the dull, optimistic, Protestant-rationalistic, or peculiarly Jewish view of life will make the demand for poetical justice, and find satisfaction in it. The true sense of tragedy is the deeper insight, that it is not his own individual sins that the hero atones for, but original sin, _i.e._, the crime of existence itself:
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1357
For sight, unlike the affections of the other senses, cannot, in itself, directly and through its sensuous effect, make the _sensation_ of the special organ agreeable or disagreeable; that is, it has no immediate connection with the will. Such a quality can only belong to the perception which arises in the understanding, and then it lies in the relation of the object to the will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1737
I gave my mind entirely up to the impression of music in all its forms, and then returned to reflection and the system of thought expressed in the present work, and thus I arrived at an explanation of the inner nature of music and of the nature of its imitative relation to the world—which from analogy had necessarily to be presupposed—an explanation which is quite sufficient for myself, and satisfactory to my investigation, and which will doubtless be equally evident to any one who has followed me thus far and has agreed with my view of the world.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 516
The process of knowledge from the general to the particular, which is peculiar to the sciences, involves the necessity that in the sciences much should be established by deduction from preceding propositions, that is to say, by demonstration; and this has given rise to the old mistake that only what has been demonstrated is absolutely true, and that every truth requires a demonstration; whereas, on the contrary, every demonstration requires an undemonstrated truth, which ultimately supports it, or it may be, its own demonstration.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 99
Or what has my quiet, earnest search for truth in common with the noisy scholastic disputations of the chair and the benches, the inmost motives of which are always personal aims. The two kinds of philosophy are, indeed, radically different.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 189
The assertion that what is dreamt is less vivid and distinct than what we actually perceive is not to the point, because no one has ever been able to make a fair comparison of the two; for we can only compare the recollection of a dream with the present reality.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 493
The same contrast appears, only familiar and more superficial, because it does not spring from the nature of things, but merely from the accident of nomenclature. In the case of the witticism the identity is in the concept, the difference in the reality, but in the case of the pun the difference is in the concepts and the identity in the reality, for the terminology is here the reality.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1925
What has just been said merely affords a preliminary and general indication of how man is distinguished from all the other phenomena of will by the fact that freedom, _i.e._, independence of the principle of sufficient reason, which only belongs to the will as thing-in-itself, and contradicts the phenomenon, may yet possibly, in his case, appear in the phenomenon also, where, however, it necessarily exhibits itself as a contradiction of the phenomenon with itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1822
Philosophy can never do more than interpret and explain what is given. It can only bring to distinct abstract knowledge of the reason the nature of the world which in the concrete, that is, as feeling, expresses itself comprehensibly to every one. This, however, it does in every possible reference and from every point of view.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2799
84 This thought is expressed by a beautiful simile in the ancient philosophical Sanscrit writing, “Sankhya Karica:” “Yet the soul remains a while invested with body; as the potter’s wheel continues whirling after the pot has been fashioned, by force of the impulse previously given to it. When separation of the informed soul from its corporeal frame at length takes place and nature in respect of it ceases, then is absolute and final deliverance accomplished.” Colebrooke, “On the Philosophy of the Hindus: Miscellaneous Essays,” vol i. p. 271. Also in the “Sankhya Karica by Horace Wilson,” § 67, p. 184.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1702
In real life, and in history, situations of this kind are rarely brought about by chance, and they stand alone, lost and concealed in the multitude of those which are insignificant. The complete significance of the situations ought to distinguish the romance, the epic, and the drama from real life as completely as the arrangement and selection of significant characters.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 958
Thus every universal, original force of nature is nothing but a low grade of the objectification of will, and we call every such grade an eternal _Idea_ in Plato’s sense. But a _law of nature_ is the relation of the Idea to the form of its manifestation. This form is time, space, and causality, which are necessarily and inseparably connected and related to each other.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1131
Even now, when the species have only to sustain themselves, no longer to come into existence, we see here and there some such forethought of nature extending to the future, and abstracting as it were from the process of time, a self-adaptation of what is to what is yet to come.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 772
If, therefore, I say,—the force which attracts a stone to the earth is according to its nature, in itself, and apart from all idea, will, I shall not be supposed to express in this proposition the insane opinion that the stone moves itself in accordance with a known motive, merely because this is the way in which will appears in man.(28) We shall now proceed more clearly and in detail to prove, establish, and develop to its full extent what as yet has only been provisionally and generally explained.(29)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2049
He will often enjoy the satisfaction of feeling his strength, and seldom experience the pain of being reminded of his weakness. The latter is mortification, which causes perhaps the greatest of mental sufferings; therefore it is far more endurable to have our misfortune brought clearly before us than our incapacity.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2746
8 This shows the ground of the Kantian explanation of matter, that it is “that which is movable in space,” for motion consists simply in the union of space and time.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1967
Such considerations, however, are really foreign to our subject. Some explanation as to the relation between the character and the knowledge in which all its motives lie, will now be more to the point.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1977
Perhaps, on a first occasion, he did not know all this so well as on a second; and if, on a similar occasion, he acts differently, this arises simply from the fact that the circumstances were really different, as regards the part of them that depends on his knowing them, although they seem to be the same.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2211
We already considered fully at the beginning of this Fourth Book how the will to live in its assertion must regard its relation to death. We saw that death does not trouble it, because it exists as something included in life itself and belonging to it. Its opposite, generation, completely counterbalances it; and, in spite of the death of the individual, ensures and guarantees life to the will to live through all time.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2496
Thus through the diminished interest in our own self, the anxious care for the self is attacked at its very root and limited; hence the peace, the unbroken serenity, which a virtuous disposition and a good conscience affords, and the more distinct appearance of this with every good deed, for it proves to ourselves the depth of that disposition. The egoist feels himself surrounded by strange and hostile individuals, and all his hope is centred in his own good.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 289
Those who like mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos (χρονος), the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the moment here referred to at which time appears, though, indeed it has no beginning; for with him, since he ate his father, the crude productions of heaven and earth cease, and the races of gods and men appear upon the scene.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1604
Therefore through the allegory a conception has always to be signified, and consequently the mind of the beholder has to be drawn away from the expressed perceptible idea to one which is entirely different, abstract and not perceptible, and which lies quite outside the work of art. The picture or statue is intended to accomplish here what is accomplished far more fully by a book. Now, what we hold is the end of art, representation of a perceivable, comprehensible Idea, is not here the end.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1665
For even the best of the historians are, as poets, far from the first; and moreover their hands are tied. In this aspect the relation between the historian and the poet may be illustrated by the following comparison.