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.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
Schopenhauer suggests that existence is filled with more suffering than joy, making life seem burdensome rather than fulfilling.
In this quote, Arthur Schopenhauer expresses a deep pessimism about the nature of existence, arguing that life is primarily characterized by pain and desire. He posits that any pleasure we experience is fleeting and often gives way to new desires, which in turn create further distress. Schopenhauer emphasizes the idea that the suffering endured by living beings far outweighs the temporary joys, suggesting that it may be better if existence itself did not occur.
Themes
SufferingPainPleasureExistenceDesirePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality.
More from Arthur Schopenhauer
All quotes βTo 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.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Life is full of troubles and vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of corrected thoughts, or leave it.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
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.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
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.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Similar quotes
They stormed and jeered at one another in long meaningless words of about twenty syllables each.
C. S. LewisRead
A lot of women ask themselves why they should bring a child into the world? So that it will be hungry, so that it will be cold, so that it will be betrayed and humiliated, so that it will be slaughtered by war or disease? They reject the hope that its hunger will be satisfied, its cold warmed, that loyalty and respect will accompany it through life, that it will be a devote a life to the effort to eliminate war and disease.
Oriana FallaciRead
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
Henry A. KissingerRead
And no matter what, there's not one thing in this world *or* the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That's all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That's all. That's all that matters. It's all that matters because it's all that's possible.
James AgeeRead
The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.
James A. BaldwinRead
No matter what we call it, poison is still poison, death is still death, and industrial civilization is still causing the greatest mass extinction in the history of the planet.
Derrick JensenRead