Arthur Schopenhauer — "The best thing in life is to be born an idiot."
The best thing in life is to be born an idiot.
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More from Arthur Schopenhauer
"Optimism, where it is not merely the thoughtless chatter of fools, is not only a absurd doctrine, but also a truly wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of humanity."
"The price of glory is the loss of leisure."
"If we were not all so pitifully and ridiculously constituted, we should be ashamed to be alive."
"Such a view is the apotheosis of Philistinism."
"The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy."
About Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
German philosopher of pessimism whose The World as Will and Representation (1819) defined the suffering-and-renunciation tradition. Closely associated with Immanuel Kant (the system Schopenhauer built on and revised). For an intellectual contrast, see G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealist of the rational unfolding of Spirit — Schopenhauer scheduled his Berlin lectures opposite Hegel's and spent decades attacking Hegel's optimistic system as deliberately mystifying nonsense — the foundational rivalry of 19th-century German philosophy.
The standard scholarly entry points to Arthur Schopenhauer's work: Bryan Magee (Oxford, populariser-philosopher) — The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (1983); Christopher Janaway (Southampton, Schopenhauer specialist) — Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy (1989); David E. Cartwright (Wisconsin–Whitewater) — Schopenhauer: A Biography (2010). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Arthur Schopenhauer.
Details
Attributed, though precise source is elusive, reflecting his pessimistic philosophy.
Date: Approx. 19th Century
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