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German · 1788-1860 · 13 quotes
German · 1788–1860
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Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher whose systematic pessimism and emphasis on the will as the fundamental force of existence profoundly influenced European thought from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Born in 1788 in Danzig (now Gdańsk) to a prosperous merchant family, he studied philosophy in Göttingen and Berlin before producing his major work, The World as Will and Representation, in 1818. The book attracted little attention for decades; Schopenhauer spent years teaching at Berlin, where he famously scheduled his lectures opposite Hegel's to disastrous effect on attendance. Recognition came late but thoroughly, and by the 1850s he was widely read and admired. His philosophy held that behind all appearances lies a blind, striving Will — the source of suffering — and that art, especially music, and ascetic renunciation offer the only genuine escape. Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein all acknowledged his influence. He died in 1860.
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