Some quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer

[painful existence]

1.They tell us that Suicide is the greatest piece of Cowardice... That Suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in this world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person
2.If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
3.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
4.We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.
5.Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom.
6.Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.
7.The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.
8.If God made this world then I would not want to be that God.
9.

 

[Walilamdzii]

I like the majority of those.. favourite being 4.

 

[jar-baby]

I like 6 best.

5 reminds me of a line from Candide—

Martin concluded that man was born to live in either the convulsions of distress or the lethargy of boredom.

 

[Sunset Limited]

If life were a game sold on Steam, it would probably be a pay to win and free to play crappy mmorpg that no one would want to play.

 

[StolenLife]

I agree with all of them and number 6 is why I want nothingness after death.

 

[Ashu]

The Schopmeister, ma main man.

The Schopmeister, ma main man.

I love Schopenhauer, but it has to be said that like most people (including his hero the Buddha), he lacked sympathetic imagination, and that often made him a little stupid, despite his brilliance, by leading him to universalize the misery of miserable fucks like himself and us. As universal statements, many of these are simply not true. For example, if Schopenhauer experienced an orgasm as nothing but the absence of pain, well, that says something sad about Schopenhauer and his orgasms. Obviously such spurious universalization is the miserable man's imagined revenge upon the happy. Is it really so difficult to just acknowledge that some people are destined to be happy and others unhappy, as many members of this group are mature enough to do?

 

[Forever Sleep]

I agree with a lot of it- I'm sure it resonates with how many people here experience life. Still- why then are there 8 billion of us crammed onto this rock? Why do people keep reproducing? Are we really that illogical and purely driven by our base instincts? Or- do the majority of people experience life differently to this?

 

[aGoodDayToDie]

I agree with a lot of it- I'm sure it resonates with how many people here experience life. Still- why then are there 8 billion of us crammed onto this rock? Why do people keep reproducing? Are we really that illogical and purely driven by our base instincts? Or- do the majority of people experience life differently to this?

People who have children are shortsightedly stuck in a narrow view of the situation. Not only do they forget how much they suffer, but only think of the benefits of having children, and nor how much the children will suffer. Its a naturally induced delusion

 

[geogaddi_676]

I agree with Schopenhauer that life is generally unsatisfying that we are nearly always in a state of unquenchable want or desire, people assume having children will finally be the thing that satisfies them but it just perpetuates the cycle and unloads a fresh batch of responsibilities and desire onto another being, who never asked or wanted it. Childhood can be a beautiful thing and many parts of adult life can be fun and enjoyable, but they are fleeting and overall if you really assess the situation, most of life is just toil and boredom, or craving the next thing, which doesn't quite satisfy. For some its unbearably miserable and painful, why take the risk if this is a possibility. I like all the listed quotes, especially 4.

 

[painful existence]

The Schopmeister, ma main man.

I love Schopenhauer, but it has to be said that like most people (including his hero the Buddha), he lacked sympathetic imagination, and that often made him a little stupid, despite his brilliance, by leading him to universalize the misery of miserable fucks like himself and us. As universal statements, many of these are simply not true. For example, if Schopenhauer experienced an orgasm as nothing but the absence of pain, well, that says something sad about Schopenhauer and his orgasms. Obviously such spurious universalization is the miserable man's imagined revenge upon the happy. Is it really so difficult to just acknowledge that some people are destined to be happy and others unhappy, as many members of this group are mature enough

I am not sure where he is making a claim about non existence of pleasure.On contrary in quote 6 he is acknowledging the existence of pleasure .He is only claiming that sensation of extreme pleasure might not be as powerful as that of extreme pain.
Also I am not sure that he is universalising anything.He was deeply aware of the fact that the perception of world would vary from one human to another as it is impossible for us to experience the objective reality of the world as everything is filtered through our senses.
Thus suffering is indeed a subjective experience and there might indeed exist individuals who would experience little to no suffering during their lifetimes.However this is the exception not the norm.

 

[thebookofdisquiet]

Just bought a book because of this post, thank you for sharing :)

 

[dreambound]

...there is nothing better than a few schopenhauer quotes to ground you back into reality, especially
if you have spent the day faking optimism for all the 'normies'

 

[outatime_85]

"If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony." - Arthur Schopenhauer

 

[Black Sky]

"If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony." - Arthur Schopenhauer

First time I came across that one, I felt a strange kind of peace. And from that point of view, this place, SS, feels almost like a clandestine gathering of rebellious inmates plotting a prison break.