We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the complexity of emotions related to success and loss, suggesting that we might miss our enemies when they are gone.
Schopenhauer's quote explores the notion that even adversaries have value in our lives, particularly when we achieve success. Their existence serves as a counterbalance to our own accomplishments, and their absence can evoke feelings of regret, similar to the loss of friends. This highlights the intricate web of human relationships and the unexpected ways in which others contribute to our understanding of achievement.
In practice
During a speech about competition, one might use this quote to illustrate the complex feelings around rivalry.
To be shocked at how deeply rejection hurts is to ignore what acceptance involves. We must never allow our suffering to be compounded by suggestions that there is something odd in suffering so deeply. There would be something amiss if we didn't.
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.
Our religions will never at any time take root; the ancient wisdom of the human race will not be supplanted by the events in Galilee. On the contrary, Indian wisdom flows back to Europe, and will produce a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.
We will gradually become indifferent to what goes on in the minds of other people when we acquire a knowledge of the superficial nature of their thoughts, the narrowness of their views and of the number of their errors. Whoever attaches a lot of value to the opinions of others pays them too much honor.
It would be better if there were nothing. Since there is more pain than pleasure on earth, every satisfaction is only transitory, creating new desires and new distresses, and the agony of the devoured animal is always far greater than the pleasure of the devourer
From joy people are born; for joy they live; in joy they melt at death. Death is an ecstasy, for it removes the burden of the body and frees the soul of all pain springing from body identification. It is the cessation of pain and sorrow.
In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind - in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.
The right to bear arms? What about the right to live?
Every walker is a guard on patrol to protect the ineffable.
I do not want to make my stomach a graveyard of dead animals.
The death penalty symbolizes whom we fear and don't fear, whom we care about and whose lives are not valid.
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