/lit/ - Literature

Die wohlfeilste Art des Stolzes hingegen ist der Nationalstolz. Denn er verrät in dem damit Behafteten den Mangel an individuellen Eigenschaften, auf die er stolz sein könnte, indem er sonst nicht zu dem greifen würde, was er mit so vielen Millionen teilt. Wer bedeutende persönliche Vorzüge besitzt, wird vielmehr die Fehler seiner eigenen Nation, da er sie beständig vor Augen hat, am deutlichsten erkennen. Aber jeder erbärmliche Tropf, der nichts in der Welt hat, darauf er stolz sein könnte, ergreift das letzte Mittel, auf die Nation, der er gerade angehört, stolz zu sein. Hieran erholt er sich und ist nun dankbarlich bereit, alle Fehler und Torheiten, die ihr eigen sind, mit Händen und Füßen zu verteidigen.

>On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of indivudual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend all the faults and follies peculiar to it.

>>4965130

“A quick test of the assertion that pleasure outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten”

>>4641992

>reading any of these fucking plebs

which has fallen further in the past 200 years, philosophy or art?

>>4205733

Forever reading, never to be read.

>>4024834

>>4024834

>mfw people are actually serious about this

You can definitely lose your entire life reading this stuff though.

>Depression is like a shrewd accountant who advises us against making purchases we cannot afford and who prevents involuntary expenditures our principal cannot cover.

http://www.academia.edu/215298/Kierkegaards_Uncanny_Encounter_with_Schopenhauer_1854

>In one respect I almost resent having begun to read Schopenhauer. I have such an indescribably scrupulous anxiety about using someone else’s expressions without acknowledgement. But his expressions are sometimes so closely akin to mine that in my exaggerated diffidence I perhaps end by ascribing to him what is my very own.

>>3706373

>As the sun needs an eye in order to shine, and music an ear in order to sound, so the worth of every masterpiece in art and science is conditioned by the mind related and equal to it to which it speaks. Only such a mind possesses the incantation to arouse the spirits imprisoned in such a work and make them show themselves. The commonplace head stands before it as before a magic casket he cannot open, or before an instrument he cannot play and from which he can therefore summon only inchoate noises, however much he would like to deceive himself in the matter. A beautiful work requires a sensitive mind, a speculative work a thinking mind, in order really to exist and to live.

>Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

I think the saddest thing in the world is that a philosopher can make some real headway into the exposition and solution of a philosophical problem, or even resolve it outright, and the world will carry on arguing quite as though nothing had been written. I suppose that is the price of having to educate a new generation every 30 years, but it is enough to make one think we are running in place here.

http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Philosophy-Schopenhauer-published-University/dp/B008P6I1PC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1364173511&sr=8-3&keywords=prize+essay+on+the+freedom+of+the+will

>>3476752

Because in the eyes of a friend of truth, any fraud, howsoever pious, is still a fraud.

Do you know why the problem of free will was unknown amongst the ancients? It is an invention of the scripture.

>>3422645

I don't need to defend someone like him against a no one like you.

>Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

>>3388420

>An ethical code based on egoism rather than compassion

Do you even categorical imperative?

“Let us imagine a man who, while standing on the street, would say to himself: ‘It is six o’clock in the evening, the working day is over. Now I can go for a walk, or I can go to the club; I can also climb up the tower to see the sun set; I can go to the theater; I can visit this friend or that one; indeed I also can run out of the gate, into the wide world, and never return. All of this is strictly up to me, in this I have complete freedom. But still I shall do none of these things now, but with just as free a will I shall go home to my wife.’ This is exactly as if water spoke to itself: ‘I can make high waves (yes! in the sea during a storm), I can rush down a hill (yes! in the river bed), I can plunge down foaming and gushing (yes! in the waterfall), I can rise freely as a stream of water into the air (yes! in the fountain), I can, finally, boil away and disappear (yes! at certain temperature); but I am doing none of these things now, and I am voluntarily remaining quiet and clear water in the reflecting pond.’”

>>2639429

>On the order of Kant or Hegel
>Not Kant or Schopenhauer

Are you an imbecile or something?

I read Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung when I was 15, and The Fourfold Root when I was 16

In the five years since then I would say that in re-reading them I've picked up on things that I simply didn't understand back then or just read over without processing.