The World as Will and Representation, Volume II Quotes

“However, for the man who studies to gain insight, books and studies are merely rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a rung has raised him up one step, he leaves it behind. On the other hand, the many who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but take them off and load themselves with them to take away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain below forever, because they bear what should have bourne them.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Whatever torch we kindle, and whatever space it may illuminate, our horizon will always remain encircled by the depth of night.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“In endless space countless luminous spheres, round each of which some dozen smaller illuminated ones revolve, hot at the core and covered over with a hard cold crust; on this crust a mouldy film has produced living and knowing beings: this is empirical truth, the real, the world. Yet for a being who thinks, it is a precarious position to stand on one of those numberless spheres freely floating in boundless space, without knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar beings that throng, press, and toil, restlessly and rapidly arising and passing away in beginningless and endless time.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Life is never beautiful, but only the pictures of life are so in the transfiguring mirror of art or poetry; especially in youth, when we do not yet know it. Many a youth would receive great peace of mind if one could assist him to this knowledge.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Therefore, we do not become conscious of the three greatest blessings of life as such, namely health, youth, and freedom, as long as we possess them, but only after we have lost them; for they too are negations.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“  “Out of any piece of wood a god may be carved.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“The cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.... All laughter then is occasioned by a paradox.... This, briefly stated, is the true explanation of the ludicrous.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“The mind is by its nature free, not a slave; only what it does by itself and willingly is successful.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“Now it is very striking, and well worth investigating, that such trifling, nay, apparently childish, means as metre and rhyme produce so powerful an effect. I explain it to myself in the following manner: That which is given directly to the sense of hearing, thus the mere sound of the words, receives from rhythm and rhyme a certain completeness and significance in itself for it thereby becomes a kind of music; therefore it seems now to exist for its own sake, and no longer as a mere means, mere signs of something signified, the sense of the words. To please the ear with its sound seems to be its whole end, and therefore with this everything seems to be attained and all claims satisfied. But that it further contains a meaning, expresses a thought, presents itself now as an unexpected addition, like words to music - as an unexpected present which agreeably surprises us - and therefore, since we made no demands of this kind, very easily satisfies us; and if indeed this thought is such that, in itself, thus said in prose, it would be significant, then we are enchanted.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“La vida y los sueños son hojas de uno y el mismo libro. Leerlo de corrido equivale a la vida real. Pero algunas veces, cuando acaban las horas de lectura (el día) y llega el tiempo de reposo, seguimos hojeando ese libro sin orden ni concierto, abriéndolo al azar por una u otra de sus páginas; con frecuencia se trata de una página ya leída y en otras ocasiones de una página desconocida, pero siempre son páginas de uno y el mismo libro. Así, una página aislada no guarda trabazón alguna con una lectura consecuente de principio a fin, mas no por ello queda muy a la zaga de ésta, si se piensa que también el conjunto de la lectura consecutiva comienza y acaba de improviso, con lo cual cabe considerarla como una sola página un tanto más extensa.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, El mundo como voluntad y representación

“an intellect that positively excels even in one single direction is among the rarest of natural phenomena.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“I now turn to a *subjective* consideration that belongs here; yet I can give even less distinctness to it than to the objective consideration just discussed, for I shall be able to express it only by image and simile. Why is our consciousness brighter and more distinct the farther it reaches outwards, so that its greatest clearness lies in sense perception, which already half belongs to things outside us; and, on the other hand, becomes more obscure as we go inwards, and leads, when followed to its innermost recesses, into a darkness in which all knowledge ceases? Because, I say, consciousness presupposes *individuality*; but this belongs to the mere phenomenon, since, as the plurality of the homogeneous, it is conditioned by the forms of the phenomenon, time and space. On the other hand, our inner nature has its root in what is no longer phenomenon but thing-in-itself, to which therefore the forms of the phenomenon do not reach; and in this way, the chief conditions of individuality are wanting, and distinct consciousness ceases therewith. In this root-point of existence the difference of beings ceases, just as that of the radii of a sphere ceases at the centre. As in the sphere the surface is produced by the radii ending and breaking off, so consciousness is possible only where the true inner being runs out into the phenomenon. Through the forms of the phenomenon separate individuality becomes possible, and on this individuality rests consciousness, which is on this account confined to phenomena. Therefore everything distinct and really intelligible in our consciousness always lies only outwards on this surface on the sphere. But as soon as we withdraw entirely from this, consciousness forsakes us―in sleep, in death, and to a certain extent also in magnetic or magic activity; for all these lead through the centre. But just because distinct consciousness, as being conditioned by the surface of the sphere, is not directed towards the centre, it recognizes other individuals certainly as of the same kind, but not as identical, which, however, they are in themselves. Immortality of the individual could be compared to the flying off at a tangent of a point on the surface; but immortality, by virtue of the eternity of the true inner being of the whole phenomenon, is comparable to the return of that point on the radius to the centre, whose mere extension is the surface. The will as thing-in-itself is entire and undivided in every being, just as the centre is an integral part of every radius; whereas the peripheral end of this radius is in the most rapid revolution with the surface that represents time and its content, the other end at the centre where eternity lies, remains in profoundest peace, because the centre is the point whose rising half is no different from the sinking half. Therefore, it is said also in the *Bhagavad-Gita*: *Haud distributum animantibus, et quasi distributum tamen insidens, animantiumque sustentaculum id cognoscendum, edax et rursus genitale* (xiii, 16, trans. Schlegel) [Undivided it dwells in beings, and yet as it were divided; it is to be known as the sustainer, annihilator, and producer of beings]. Here, of course, we fall into mystical and metaphorical language, but it is the only language in which anything can be said about this wholly transcendent theme.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Natural understanding can take the place of almost every degree of culture, but no culture can take the place of natural understanding. The scholar has the advantage of such men in the possession of a wealth of cases and facts (historical knowledge) and of causal determinations (natural science), all in well-ordered connection, easily surveyed; but yet with all this he has not a more accurate and profound insight into what is truly essential in all these cases, facts, and causations. The unlearned man of acuteness and penetration knows how to dispense with this wealth; we can make use of much; we can do with little.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

“The truth is that we ought to be wretched, and are so.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“just because universal concepts result only from thinking away and leaving out actual and existing determinations, and are therefore the emptier the more universal they are, the use of this procedure is limited to the elaboration of knowledge already acquired.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“Thus, flowers cannot be preserved, but their ethereal oil, their essence, with the same smell and the same virtues, can. The conduct that has had correct concepts for its guidance will, in the result, coincide with the reality intended.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“In accordance with such zeal, by reducing the external world to a matter of faith, he wanted merely to open a little door for faith in general, and to prepare the credit for that which was afterwards actually to be offered on credit; just as if, to introduce paper money, we tried to appeal to the fact that the value of the ringing coin depended merely on the stamp the State put on it.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“In consequence of the inevitably scattered and fragmentary nature of our thinking, which has been mentioned, and of the mixing together of the most heterogeneous representations thus brought about and inherent even in the noblest human mind, we really possess only *half a consciousness*. With this we grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lighting. But what is to be expected generally from heads of which even the wisest is every night the playground of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and has to take up its meditations again on emerging from these dreams? Obviously a consciousness subject to such great limitations is little fitted to explore and fathom the riddle of the world; and to beings of a higher order, whose intellect did not have time as its form, and whose thinking therefore had true completeness and unity, such an endeavor would necessarily appear strange and pitiable. In fact, it is a wonder that we are not completely confused by the extremely heterogeneous mixture of fragments of representations and of ideas of every kind which are constantly crossing one another in our heads, but that we are always able to find our way again, and to adapt and adjust everything. Obviously there must exist a simple thread on which everything is arranged side by side: but what is this? Memory alone is not enough, since it has essential limitations of which I shall shortly speak; moreover, it is extremely imperfect and treacherous. The *logical ego*, or even the *transcendental synthetic unity of apperception*, are expressions and explanations that will not readily serve to make the matter comprehensible; on the contrary, it will occur to many that

“Your wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder.”

Kant’s proposition: “The *I think* must accompany all our representations ,” is insufficient; for the “I” is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. On the contrary, it must be the *prius* of consciousness, and the root of the tree of which consciousness is the fruit. This, I say, is the *will*; it alone is unalterable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth consciousness for its own ends. It is therefore the will that gives unity and holds all its representations and ideas together, accompanying them, as it were, like a continuous ground-bass. Without it the intellect would have no more unity of consciousness than has a mirror, in which now one thing now another presents itself in succession, or at most only as much as a convex mirror has, whose rays converge at an imaginary point behind its surface. But it is *the will* alone that is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness. It is the will that holds all ideas and representations together as means to its ends, tinges them with the colour of its character, its mood, and its interest, commands the attention, and holds the thread of motives in its hand. The influence of these motives ultimately puts into action memory and the association of ideas. Fundamentally it is the will that is spoken of whenever “I” occurs in a judgement. Therefore, the will is the true and ultimate point of unity of consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts. It does not, however, itself belong to the intellect, but is only its root, origin, and controller.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Therefore books do not take the place of experience, because concepts always remain universal, and so do not reach down to the particular; yet it is precisely the particular that has to be dealt with in life.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“Every grade of the Will’s objectification fights for the matter, the space, and the time of another.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Religiões são necessárias para o povo, e são-lhes um inestimável benefício. Todavia, se elas querem opor-se ao progresso da humanidade no conhecimento da verdade, então com o máximo de clemência possível elas têm de ser empurradas para o lado. E exigir que até mesmo um grande espírito - um Shakespeare, um Goethe - abrace com convicção própria os dogmas de alguma religião implicitamente, de boa-fé e em sentido próprio é como exigir que um gigante calce os sapatos de um anão.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“[T]he empirical inscrutableness of all natural things is a proof a posteriori of the ideality and merely phenomenal-actuality of their empirical existence.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II

“Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenable nature of his doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the Analytic of Principles (phaenomena et noumena) several long passages of the first edition (p. 241, 242, 244-246, 248-253) are omitted in the second - passages which displayed the weakness of that doctrine too openly. So, for example, he says there (p. 241) that he has not defined the individual categories, because he could not define them even if he had wished to do so, inasmuch as they were susceptible of no definition. In saying this he forgot that at p. 82 of the same first edition he had said: 'I purposely dispense with the definition of the categories although I may be in possession of it." This then was, sit venia verbo, wind. But this last passage he has allowed to stand. And so all those passages wisely omitted afterwards betray the fact that nothing distinct can be thought in connection with the categories, and this whole doctrine stands upon a weak foundation.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

“What does the absolute mean? Something that is, and of which (under pain of punishment) we dare not ask further whence and why it is. A precious rarity for professors of philosophy!”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

“Forma dat rei essentiam, materia existentiam.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

“To satisfy themselves with this, they gladly grasp at words, especially those which denote indefinite, very abstract, and unusual concepts difficult to explain, such, for example, as infinite and finite, sensuous and supersensuous, the Idea of being, Ideas of reason, the Absolute,”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“We can judge the inestimable value of concepts, and consequently of the faculty of reason, if we glance at the endless multitude and variety of things and conditions coexisting and succeeding one another, and then reflect that language and writing (the signs of concepts) are nevertheless able to afford us accurate information about everything and every relation, whenever and wherever it may have been, in that comparatively few concepts concern and represent an infinite number of things and conditions.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“to be superior (überlegen) to others in real life, the indispensable condition is to be thoughtful and deliberate (überlegt), in other words, to set to work in accordance with concepts.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“What is time? What is this entity consisting of mere movement without anything that moves? and, What is space, this omnipresent nothing out of which no thing can emerge without ceasing to be something? That time and space belong to the subject,”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 2

“In history, however, it is the other way around, and the most universal is the most certain, for instance the time periods, the succession of kings, the revolutions, wars, and peace treaties, while on the other hand the particularities of events and their connections are less certain, and become even less so the more we become involved with the details. History is therefore more interesting the more specific it is, but also that much less reliable, and more like a novel in every respect.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume II