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Life
Behind every striving thing (leaf, stone, human) he found one thing: blind, directionless will, knowing neither rest nor satisfaction.
He announced that God was dead and no one had yet understood what that meant. He was right on both counts.
Connection
Arthur Schopenhauer early inspiration, then rejection Friedrich Nietzsche — At twenty, Nietzsche read Schopenhauer and recognized a mirror for his own temperament. He spent the next decade moving away: replacing pessimism with affirmation, will-to-denial with will-to-power.
Ideas
Words
“The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.”
“Compassion is the basis of morality.”
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Key Moments
1820
Lectures to empty halls alongside Hegel
1831
Settles permanently in Frankfurt
1851
Late fame with Parerga and Paralipomena
1883-85
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
3 January 1889
Collapse in Turin
Works
The World as Will and Representation
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Beyond Good and Evil