Philipp Mainländer Quotes

The will must not only despise death, it must love it; for chastity is the love of death.

Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter VII (Apología del suicidio), page 128, <small></small>

And this unhappiness - which corrodes and shakes the heart - is the driving force in the lives of the lower groups of the population, which whips them toward the path of redemption. The poor are consumed with the burning desire to possess the houses, the gardens, the goods, the saddle horses, the carriages, the champagne, the jewels and daughters of the wealthy. Well, then give them all these trifling possessions. Rise and descend from the luminous heights, from where you have seen with intoxicated gaze the promised land of eternal tranquility, where you had to recognize that life is essentially unfortunate, where the blindfold had to fall from your eyes; descend into the dark valley through which the turbid stream of the dispossessed creeps, and place your delicate, but loyal, pure and courageous hands in the calloused hands of your brothers. "They are brutes." Then give them motives that will ennoble them. "Their manners disgust." Then change them. "They believe that life has value. They consider the rich happier, for they eat and drink better, because they feast and make noise. They think the heart beats more peacefully under silk than under the coarse garb of toil." Then disillusion them, but not with sayings, but with deeds. Let them experience, let them prove for themselves that neither wealth, nor honor, nor fame, nor a pleasant life makes for happiness. Break down the barriers that separate those deceived by supposed happiness and they will be perplexed. Then they will complain: "We had thought we could be happy like this, and it turns out that, deep down, nothing has changed in us". All human beings must first of all be fed up with all the pleasures that the world can offer, before mankind can be ripe for redemption. Since their redemption is their destiny, they must be satiated, and such satisfaction is only brought about when the social question is resolved.

Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Politik, § 47 <small></small>

Pessimistic philosophy will be for the historical period that is now beginning, what the pessimistic religion of Christianity was for the one that has passed. The symbol of our flag is not the crucified redeemer but the angel of death with large, placid and clement eyes, supported by the dove of the idea of redemption; in essence, it is the same symbol.

Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Metaphysik, § 14 <small></small>

The plant grows, reproduces (in some way) and dies (after living for some time). Disregarding any particularity, the great and actual fact of death, which could not appear on the scene anywhere in the inorganic realm, comes to light first and clearly. Could the plant die if it did not want to die in the depths of its essence? It follows only its fundamental impulse, which drew all its desire from God's longing for non-being.

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.

The first movement and the origin of the universe are one and the same. The transformation of the simple unity into the world of multiplicity, the transition from the transcendent to the immanent realm, was precisely the first movement; all subsequent movements were only continuations of the first, that is, they could not have been anything else than a new disintegration or further fragmentation of ideas. This further disintegration could manifest itself in the early periods of the universe only through the actual division of simple matter and its connections. Each simple chemical force had the urge to expand its individuality, i.e., to change its motion; however, it clashed with all others possessing the same urge, and thus arose the most fearsome struggles of the ideas with each other, in states of maximum impetus and agitation. The result was always a chemical bond, i.e., the victory of the stronger force over a weaker one and the entry of the new idea into the endless struggle.

Philosophie der Erlösung, Erster Band (2014), Ethik, § 26 <small></small>

Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter IV (Humanidad, Civilización y estado ideal), pages 87-88, <small></small>

Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter V (El santo y el demonio), page 106, <small></small>

Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter II (La ley universal del debilitamiento de la fuerza), page 59, <small></small>

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.

But at the bottom, the immanent philosopher sees in the entire universe only the deepest longing for absolute annihilation, and it is as if he clearly hears the call that permeates all spheres of heaven: Redemption! Redemption! Death to our life! And the comforting answer: you will all find annihilation and be redeemed.