The world is my representation.

Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosophers

Arthur Schopenhauer

Born in 1788 in Danzig (now Gdansk), Arthur Schopenhauer constructed in The World as Will and Representation a metaphysics identifying the essence of reality as a blind, purposeless 'will.' Inheriting Kant's critical philosophy while becoming the first major Western philosopher to integrate Buddhist thought systematically, his pessimistic vision of human nature profoundly shaped Nietzsche, Wagner, and Freud.

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Source: 意志と表象としての世界 第1巻 冒頭Verified

Arthur Schopenhauer's Other Quotes

Life swings like a pendulum back and forth between pain and boredom.

Every day is a little life.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.

We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.

Compassion is the foundation of morality.

Related Quotes

For thinking and Being are the same.

-- Parmenides

You must learn all things: both the steadfast heart of well-rounded Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.

-- Parmenides

Imagine prisoners chained underground since childhood, seeing only shadows on a wall and taking them for reality.

-- Plato

I know that I know nothing.

-- Socrates

Color exists by convention, sweet by convention, bitter by convention; in reality there are only atoms and void.

-- Democritus

Those who understand that things arise dependently know them to be empty.

-- Nagarjuna