The World as Will and Idea
Arthur Schopenhauer
2,809 passages indexed from The World as Will and Idea (Arthur Schopenhauer) — Page 53 of 57
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The World as Will and Idea, passage 471
No mockery can shake the former; no priest’s absolution can deliver from the latter. Notwithstanding this, we must allow, that for the pursuit of a virtuous life, the application of reason is needful; only it is not its source, but has the subordinate function of preserving resolutions which have been made, of providing maxims to withstand the weakness of the moment, and give consistency to action.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1367
Thus what distinguishes the sense of the sublime from that of the beautiful is this: in the case of the beautiful, pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle, for the beauty of the object, _i.e._, that property which facilitates the knowledge of its Idea, has removed from consciousness without resistance, and therefore imperceptibly, the will and the knowledge of relations which is subject to it, so that what is left is the pure subject of knowledge without even a remembrance of will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1797
But further, on account of the truth of the saying of Leibnitz, which is confirmed in various ways, music, regarded apart from its æsthetic or inner significance, and looked at merely externally and purely empirically, is simply the means of comprehending directly and in the concrete large numbers and complex relations of numbers, which otherwise we could only know indirectly by fixing them in concepts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2160
This is accordingly most markedly the case with nations for which life is made easy by the congenial nature of the climate and the soil, most of all with the Hindus, then with the Greeks, the Romans, and later with the Italians, the Spaniards, &c. Demons, gods, and saints man creates in his own image; and to them he must then unceasingly bring offerings, prayers, temple decorations, vows and their fulfilment, pilgrimages, salutations, ornaments for their images, &c.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 205
The fuller explanation of this question and its answer in the affirmative, will form the content of the second book, and its consequences will occupy the remaining portion of this work.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1983
Repentance never proceeds from a change of the will (which is impossible), but from a change of knowledge. The essential and peculiar in what I have always willed I must still continue to will; for I myself am this will which lies outside time and change. I can therefore never repent of what I have willed, though I can repent of what I have done; because, led by false conceptions, I did something that was not in conformity with my will.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 474
And thus, as we have seen, many human actions can only be performed by the help of reason and deliberation, and yet there are some which are better performed without its assistance.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1956
As Nature is consistent, so is the character; every action must take place in accordance with it, just as every phenomenon takes place according to a law of Nature: the causes in the latter case and the motives in the former are merely the occasional causes, as was shown in the Second Book. The will, whose phenomenon is the whole being and life of man, cannot deny itself in the particular case, and what the man wills on the whole, that will he also will in the particular case.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2059
To the bitter chapter of the self-knowledge here recommended the lines of Ovid admit of excellent application—
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1691
In it pure knowing comes to us, as it were, to deliver us from desire and its stain; we follow, but only for an instant; desire, the remembrance of our own personal ends, tears us anew from peaceful contemplation; yet ever again the next beautiful surrounding in which the pure will-less knowledge presents itself to us, allures us away from desire.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 315
But with abstract knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appear in the theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical. In the idea of perception, illusion may at moments take the place of the real; but in the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations, extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and, by the help of its slaves and its dupes, may chain and fetter those whom it cannot deceive.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 870
Therefore it is only in these sciences that knowledge finds no obscurity, does not rest upon what is incomprehensible (groundless, _i.e._, will), upon what cannot be further deduced. It is on this account that Kant wanted, as we have said, to apply the name science specially and even exclusively to these branches of knowledge together with logic.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 328
The brute expresses its feelings and dispositions by gestures and sounds; man communicates his thought to others, or, if he wishes, he conceals it, by means of speech. Speech is the first production, and also the necessary organ of his reason. Therefore in Greek and Italian, speech and reason are expressed by the same word; ὁ λογος, _il discorso_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1248
Suppose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain of causes and effects; if the earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture all the greatest men, enlighteners of the world, and heroes, that chance destroyed before they were ripe for their work; then the great events that would have changed the history of the world and brought in periods of the highest culture and enlightenment, but which the blindest chance, the most insignificant accident, hindered at the outset; lastly, the splendid powers of great men, that would have enriched whole ages of the world, but which, either misled by error or passion, or compelled by necessity, they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or even wasted in play.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1776
Its universality, however, is by no means that empty universality of abstraction, but quite of a different kind, and is united with thorough and distinct definiteness. In this respect it resembles geometrical figures and numbers, which are the universal forms of all possible objects of experience and applicable to them all _a priori_, and yet are not abstract but perceptible and thoroughly determined.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1608
But this real significance affects us only so long as we forget the nominal, allegorical significance; if we think of the latter, we forsake the perception, and the mind is occupied with an abstract conception; but the transition from the Idea to the conception is always a fall. Indeed, that nominal significance, that allegorical intention, often injures the real significance, the perceptible truth.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1306
Particular scenes of the past are known correctly, just like the particular present; but there are gaps in their recollection which they fill up with fictions, and these are either always the same, in which case they become fixed ideas, and the madness that results is called monomania or melancholy; or they are always different, momentary fancies, and then it is called folly, _fatuitas_. This is why it is so difficult to find out their former life from lunatics when they enter an asylum.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1180
To this last, which has true being, all the forms of that phenomenal existence, even the most universal and essential, are, according to both doctrines, entirely foreign. In order to disown these forms Kant has directly expressed them even in abstract terms, and distinctly refused time, space, and causality as mere forms of the phenomenon to the thing-in-itself.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 861
Consequently it may at least be asked: Are these ideas, these objects, something more than or apart from the fact that they are ideas, objects of the subject? And what would they be in this sense? What is that other side of them which is _toto genere_ different from idea? What is the thing-in-itself? _The will_, we have answered, but for the present I set that answer aside.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2138
Hence it arises that we are not properly conscious of the blessings and advantages we actually possess, nor do we prize them, but think of them merely as a matter of course, for they gratify us only negatively by restraining suffering. Only when we have lost them do we become sensible of their value; for the want, the privation, the sorrow, is the positive, communicating itself directly to us.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2659
The Indian mythus expresses this by saying “they are born again.” The great ethical difference of character means this, that the bad man is infinitely far from the attainment of the knowledge from which the denial of the will proceeds, and therefore he is in truth _actually_ exposed to all the miseries which appear in life as _possible_; for even the present fortunate condition of his personality is merely a phenomenon produced by the _principium individuationis_, and a delusion of Mâyâ, the happy dream of a beggar.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1160
Τί τὸ ὄν μὲν ἀεί, γένεσιν δὲ οὐκ ἔχον; καὶ τί τό γιγνόμενον μὲν καὶ ἀπολλύμενον, ὄντως δε οὐδέποτε ὄν.——ΠΛΑΤΩΝ.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2088
We pursue our life, however, with great interest and much solicitude as long as possible, as we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we know perfectly well that it will burst.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 639
There can be no principle in consequence of which the world with all its phenomena first came into existence, and therefore it is not possible to construct, as Spinoza wished, a philosophy which demonstrates _ex firmis principiis_. Philosophy is the most general rational knowledge, the first principles of which cannot therefore be derived from another principle still more general. The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1130
In the same way the ground adapted itself to the nutrition of plants, plants adapted themselves to the nutrition of animals, animals to that of other animals, and conversely they all adapted themselves to the nutrition of the ground. All the parts of nature correspond to each other, for it is _one_ will that appears in them all, but the course of time is quite foreign to its original and only _adequate objectification_ (this expression will be explained in the following book), the Ideas.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 485
It follows from this short but sufficient theory of the ludicrous, that, if we set aside the last case, that of the jester, wit must always show itself in words, folly generally in actions, though also in words, when it only expresses an intention and does not actually carry it out, or when it shows itself merely in judgments and opinions.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2704
Now because, as we have seen, that _self-suppression of the will_ proceeds from knowledge, and all knowledge is involuntary, that denial of will also, that entrance into freedom, cannot be forcibly attained to by intention or design, but proceeds from the inmost relation of knowing and volition in the man, and therefore comes suddenly, as if spontaneously from without.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 211
Thus the possibility of knowing the world of perception depends upon two conditions; the first, _objectively expressed_, is the power of material things to act upon each other, to produce changes in each other, without which common quality of all bodies no perception would be possible, even by means of the sensibility of the animal body.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 546
It is easier to discover the nature of an animal, by means of the species to which it belongs, and so on through the genus, family, order, and class, than to examine on every occasion the animal presented to us: but the truth of all propositions arrived at syllogistically is always conditioned by and ultimately dependent upon some truth which rests not upon reasoning but upon perception.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 829
For example, we shall see that the house of the snail is no more made by a will which is foreign to the snail itself, than the house which we build is produced through another will than our own; but we shall recognise in both houses the work of a will which objectifies itself in both the phenomena—a will which works in us according to motives, but in the snail still blindly as formative impulse directed outwards.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 548
Syllogisms are indeed perfectly certain as regards form, but they are very uncertain on account of their matter, the concepts. For, on the one hand, the spheres of these are not sufficiently sharply defined, and, on the other hand, they intersect each other in so many ways that one sphere is in part contained in many others, and we may pass at will from it to one or another of these, and from this sphere again to others, as we have already shown.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2066
First of all, I wish the reader to recall the passage with which we closed the Second Book,—a passage occasioned by the question, which met us then, as to the end and aim of the will. Instead of the answer to this question, it appeared clearly before us how, in all the grades of its manifestation, from the lowest to the highest, the will dispenses altogether with a final goal and aim. It always strives, for striving is its sole nature, which no attained goal can put an end to.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1843
It is true we see the individual come into being and pass away; but the individual is only phenomenal, exists only for the knowledge which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, to the _principio individuationis_. Certainly, for this kind of knowledge, the individual receives his life as a gift, rises out of nothing, then suffers the loss of this gift through death, and returns again to nothing.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1670
On the other hand, the life of the individual when described with truth, in a narrow sphere, shows the conduct of men in all its forms and subtilties, the excellence, the virtue, and even holiness of a few, the perversity, meanness, and knavery of most, the dissolute profligacy of some.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1628
This takes place in every trope, every metaphor, simile, parable, and allegory, all of which differ only in the length and completeness of their expression. Therefore, in the arts which employ language as their medium, similes and allegories are of striking effect.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1035
The magnet that has attracted a piece of iron carries on a perpetual conflict with gravitation, which, as the lower objectification of will, has a prior right to the matter of the iron; and in this constant battle the magnet indeed grows stronger, for the opposition excites it, as it were, to greater effort.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2293
However agreeable it is to the egoism of the individual to inflict wrong in particular cases, this has yet a necessary correlative in the suffering of wrong of another individual, to whom it is a great pain.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2719
But the faith to which the Christian Church promises salvation is this: that as through the fall of the first man we are all partakers of sin and subject to death and perdition, through the divine substitute, through grace and the taking upon himself of our fearful guilt, we are all saved, without any merit of our own (of the person); since that which can proceed from the intentional (determined by motives) action of the person, works, can never justify us, from its very nature, just because it is _intentional_, action induced by motives, _opus operatum_.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1318
That which in particular given things exists only incompletely and weakened by modifications, is raised by the man of genius, through his way of contemplating it, to the Idea of the thing, to completeness: he therefore sees everywhere extremes, and therefore his own action tends to extremes; he cannot hit the mean, he lacks soberness, and the result is what we have said. He knows the Ideas completely but not the individuals.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2490
He is now just as little likely to allow others to starve, while he himself has enough and to spare, as any one would be to suffer hunger one day in order to have more the next day than he could enjoy. For to him who does works of love the veil of Mâyâ has become transparent, the illusion of the _principium individuationis_ has left him. He recognises himself, his will, in every being, and consequently also in the sufferer.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2469
Yet they do proceed from knowledge; but it is a direct intuitive knowledge, which can neither be reasoned away, nor arrived at by reasoning, a knowledge which, just because it is not abstract, cannot be communicated, but must arise in each for himself, which therefore finds its real and adequate expression not in words, but only in deeds, in conduct, in the course of the life of man.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2623
Thus in most cases the will must be broken by great personal suffering before its self-conquest appears.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 539
For example, that matter is permanent, that is, can neither come into being nor pass away, we know directly as negative truth; for our pure intuition or perception of space and time gives the possibility of motion; in the law of causality the understanding affords us the possibility of change of form and quality, but we lack powers of the imagination for conceiving the coming into being or passing away of matter.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 373
If many spheres are brought together in this way we get a long train of syllogisms. This schematism of concepts, which has already been fairly well explained in more than one textbook, may be used as the foundation of the doctrine of the judgment, and indeed of the whole syllogistic theory, and in this way the treatment of both becomes very easy and simple. Because, through it, all syllogistic rules may be seen in their origin, and may be deduced and explained.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 199
Lastly, Calderon was so deeply impressed with this view of life that he sought to embody it in a kind of metaphysical drama—“Life a Dream.”
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1406
We saw that the feeling of the sublime arises from the fact, that something entirely unfavourable to the will, becomes the object of pure contemplation, so that such contemplation can only be maintained by persistently turning away from the will, and transcending its interests; this constitutes the sublimity of the character.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 716
But it affords us absolutely no information about the inner nature of any one of these phenomena: this is called a _force of nature_, and it lies outside the province of causal explanation, which calls the constant uniformity with which manifestations of such a force appear whenever their known conditions are present, a _law of nature_. But this law of nature, these conditions, and this appearance in a particular place at a particular time, are all that it knows or ever can know.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2667
The suicide denies only the individual, not the species. We have already seen that as life is always assured to the will to live, and as sorrow is inseparable from life, suicide, the wilful destruction of the single phenomenal existence, is a vain and foolish act; for the thing-in-itself remains unaffected by it, even as the rainbow endures however fast the drops which support it for the moment may change.
The World as Will and Idea, passage 1205
Time is only the broken and piecemeal view which the individual being has of the Ideas, which are outside time, and consequently _eternal_. Therefore Plato says time is the moving picture of eternity: αιωνος εικων κινητη ὁ χρονος.(46)
The World as Will and Idea, passage 2062
Either it wills here, at the summit of mental endowment and self-consciousness, simply what it willed before blindly and unconsciously, and if so, knowledge always remains its _motive_ in the whole as in the particular case. Or, conversely, this knowledge becomes for it a _quieter_, which appeases and suppresses all willing. This is that assertion and denial of the will to live which was stated above in general terms.