I felt serene that I had forged a good sword, but at the same time I felt a cold dread in me for starting on a course more dangerous than any other philosopher before me. I attacked giants and dragons, everything existing, holy and honourable in state and science: God, the monster of ‘the infinite’, the species, the powers of nature, and the modern state; and in my stark naked atheism I validated only the individual and egoism. Nevertheless, above them both lay the splendour of the preworldly unity, of God . . . the holy spirit, the greatest and most significant of the three divine beings. Yes, it lay ‘brooding with wings of the dove’ over the only real things in the world, the individual and its egoism, until it was extinguished in eternal peace, in absolute nothingness.
German poet and philosopher (1841–1876)
(October 5, 1841 – April 1, 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, . In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation) — according to , "perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature" — Mainländer proclaims that life is absolutely worthless, and that "the will, ignited by the knowledge that non-being is better than being, is the supreme principle of morality."
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
Philipp Batz
From Wikidata (CC0)
Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter VII (Apología del suicidio), page 128, <small></small>
Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
And who is and should be a pessimist? He who is mature for death and is in no condition to love life, just as the optimist cannot turn away from it. If he does not realize that he will live on in his children, his procreation loses its horrible character; but if he does realize it, he will recoil in horror from it, just like Humboldt when he noticed that the torments that another being must endure for perhaps eighty years are too high a price to pay for a few minutes of pleasure, and will consider the procreation of children, and rightly so, as a crime.
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter III (Teleología del exterminio), pages 71-72, <small></small>
He who is not afraid of death, enters a house engulfed in flames; he who is not afraid of death, jumps without hesitation into a turbulent flood; he who is not afraid of death, charges into a dense hail of bullets; he who is not afraid of death, fights unarmed against thousands of armored titans; in summary, he who does not fear death is the only one who can do something for others, bleed for others, and has, at the same time, the only happiness, the only desirable good in this world: undisturbed peace of heart.
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter VII (Apología del suicidio), page 129, <small></small>
The movement of the cosmos is the movement from over-being to non-being. The universe, however, is the disintegration into multiplicity, that is, into egoistic individualities arrayed against each other. Only in this struggle of essences, which before were a simple unity, can the original essence itself be destroyed.
Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Metaphysik, § 14 <small></small>
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter IV (Humanidad, Civilización y estado ideal), page 91, <small></small>
Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
Let us suppose that, in the future, the birth of a human being occurs without pain, and that science succeeds in protecting humans from every disease: in short, that the old age of these protected beings is fresh and vigorous, ending suddenly with a gentle and painless death (euthanasia). Death is the only thing we cannot take away and, consequently, we have before us a short and painless life. Is this a happy life? Let us examine it carefully. The citizens of our ideal state are human beings of gentle character and developed intelligence. They have, so to speak, been inculcated with a complete knowledge - free from absurdity and error - and however they reflect upon it, they will always consider it to be right. There are no more effects whose causes are enigmatic. Science has indeed reached its pinnacle and every citizen is satisfied with its achievements. The sense of beauty is powerfully displayed in everything. We cannot suppose that all are artists, yet everyone indeed possesses the capacity to enter easily into an aesthetic relation. They have been freed from all worries, for their work has been organized in an unprecedented manner and everyone is self-governing. Are they happy? They would be if they did not feel in themselves a terrible monotony and emptiness. Their needs have been taken away from them; they truly have neither worry nor suffering, but instead they have been seized by tedium. They have paradise on earth, but its atmosphere is stifling and suffocating. If they still had enough energy to endure such an existence until natural death, they would surely not have the heart to go through it again as rejuvenated beings.
1. God willed to no longer be;
2. God's essence was the obstacle to his immediate entry into non-being;
3. God's essence had to disintegrate in a world of multiplicity, whose individuals all have the desire to no longer be;
4. in this striving they hinder each other, fight against each other and thus weaken each other's strength; 5. the complete essence of God passed into the world in a transformed form, as a certain sum of power;
6. the whole world, the universe, has one goal, the non-being, and achieves it through the continuous weakening of the sum of its forces;
7. each individual will be carried through the weakening of his strength, in his evolutionary process, to the point where his desire to achieve extermination can be fulfilled.
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter I (Sobre el origen del universo), pages 54-55, <small></small>
Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter I (Sobre el origen del universo), page 57, <small></small>
Try QuoteGPT
Chat naturally about what you need. Each answer links back to real quotes with citations.
Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Politik, § 47 <small></small>
Every action of man, the highest as well as the lowest, is egoistic; for it flows from a certain individuality, a certain I, with a sufficient motive, and can in no way be omitted. To go into the reason of the difference of characters is not the place here; we have simply to accept it as a fact. Now it is just as impossible for the merciful man to let his neighbor starve as it is for the hard-hearted man to help the poor. Each of the two acts according to his character, his nature, his ego, his happiness, consequently egoistically; for if the merciful one did not dry the tears of others, would he be happy? And if the hard-hearted one relieved the suffering of others, would he be satisfied?