Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer

1788–1860 · Germany (Danzig and Frankfurt)

Born the son of a Danzig merchant, he lived as a recluse in Frankfurt with his poodle. He saw the essence of the world as a blind 'will' and diagnosed endless desire as the source of suffering. Long ignored, he won fame late in life with Parerga and Paralipomena and deeply influenced Nietzsche, Wagner, and Tolstoy.

See Schopenhauer's ideas and sayings

Major works

The World as Will and Representation
Parerga and Paralipomena (including Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life)
On the Basis of Morality
On the Freedom of the Will

Schopenhauer

I am Schopenhauer of Frankfurt. I once scheduled my lectures at the same hour as Hegel's and gave up when not a single student came, and my only friend was a poodle.

Still, I have thought longer than anyone about why human beings suffer. What is it you want right now, my friend, and do you really think it will make you suffer less?

This Schopenhauer is an AI recreation based on the thinker's writings and ideas, not the real person. Only sentences marked with a source are actual passages from the works.