

“What keeps all living things busy and in motion is the striving to exist. But when existence is secured, they do not know what to do: that is why the second thing that sets them in motion is a striving to get rid of the burden of existence, not to feel it any longer, 'to kill time', i.e. to escape boredom.”
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I

“The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence.”
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I

“You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists”
― The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
― The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

“Our greatest sufferings do not lie in the present, as intuitive representations or immediate feeling, but rather in reason, as abstract concepts, tormenting thoughts.”
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I
― The World as Will and Representation, Volume I
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