The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays of Schopenhauer, by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Title: Essays of Schopenhauer

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer

Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11945]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF SCHOPENHAUER ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland and PG Distributed Proofreaders

ESSAYS OF SCHOPENHAUER:

TRANSLATED BY MRS. RUDOLF DIRCKS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION.

CONTENTS

ON AUTHORSHIP AND STYLE
ON NOISE
ON EDUCATION
ON READING AND BOOKS
THE EMPTINESS OF EXISTENCE
ON WOMEN
THINKING FOR ONESELF
SHORT DIALOGUE ON THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF OUR TRUE BEING BY DEATH
RELIGION--A DIALOGUE
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS
METAPHYSICS OF LOVE
PHYSIOGNOMY
ON SUICIDE

PRELIMINARY.

When Schopenhauer was asked where he wished to be buried, he answered,
"Anywhere; they will find me;" and the stone that marks his grave at
Frankfort bears merely the inscription "Arthur Schopenhauer," without
even the date of his birth or death. Schopenhauer, the pessimist, had a
sufficiently optimistic conviction that his message to the world would
ultimately be listened to--a conviction that never failed him during a
lifetime of disappointments, of neglect in quarters where perhaps he
would have most cherished appreciation; a conviction that only showed
some signs of being justified a few years before his death. Schopenhauer
was no opportunist; he was not even conciliatory; he never hesitated to
declare his own faith in himself, in his principles, in his philosophy;
he did not ask to be listened to as a matter of courtesy but as a
right--a right for which he would struggle, for which he fought, and
which has in the course of time, it may be admitted, been conceded to
him.

Although everything that Schopenhauer wrote was written more or less as
evidence to support his main philosophical thesis, his unifying
philosophical principle, the essays in this volume have an interest, if
not altogether apart, at least of a sufficiently independent interest to
enable them to be considered on their own merits, without relation to
his main idea. And in dissociating them, if one may do s