Essays and Aphorisms - Arthur Schopenhauer

"No rose without a thorn. But many a thorn without a rose." - Schopenhauer, "On Various Subjects," II, B

I finally read the Essays and Aphorisms of Schopenhauer published by Penguin, and I was blown away by it! He'd been on my reading list for ages, and I never thought I’d enjoy him this much! I clearly see how much he influenced my favourite philosopher of all, Nietzsche (who used to be his disciple until he became his greatest critic), in both style and thought - both incredible writers and thinkers, filled with passion and wit. I also didn’t expect to agree with him on so many things. In many ways, he, like Nietzsche, was ahead of his time. Geniuses, pure and simple, and, like many a genius, neither one was truly appreciated until after leaving this world, though Scho did have some disciples in old age. 

There’s nothing I love more than a deep thinker who expresses his thoughts with both eloquence and humour, and Scho certainly gives both at full throttle. I love his prosaic and aphoristic style, saying so much in so little space while, most importantly, being crystal clear about what he’s saying, unlike Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which is incoherent and filled with run-on sentences. I found no wisdom in Hegel, whom I did a directed reading on in the final year of my undergraduate degree, along with Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, which I found almost as awful, but I find tons of wisdom in Schopenhauer! I in particularly loved his critique and mockery of religion (namely Christianity and the church’s bloody history), his work on human psychology and the unconscious half a century before Freud, his annoyance with the mob and their lack of thoughtfulness and subtlety, his analyses of different mythologies and his criticisms of the writers of his day, in particularly the sensationalism spread by journalists, which he saw through as clear as day. R. J. Hollingdale's Introduction was fantastic as well! One of my favourite things in the book came early on - the best rebuttal I'm yet to see to Leibniz's apologetical defense (against the problem of evil) that this is the best of all possible worlds:

"[T]hat a god like Jehovah should create this world of want and misery animi causa [capriciously] and de gaiete de coeur [with a light heart] and then go so far as to applaud himself for it, saying it is all very good: that is quite unacceptable.

Even if Leibniz's demonstration that this is the best of all possible worlds were correct, it would still not be a vindication of divine providence. For the Creator created not only the world, he also created possibility itself: therefore he should have created the possibility of a better world than this one." - Page 48

YESSSSSSSSSSS!!! SO MUCH YES!!! Bravo, Scho . . . BRAVO!