“ Quiet and easy is, as a rule, the death of every good man: but to die willingly, to die gladly, to die joyfully, is the prerogative of the resigned, of him who surrenders and denies the will to live. ”
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1819). copy citation
Author | Arthur Schopenhauer |
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Source | The World as Will and Representation |
Topic | death surrender |
Date | 1819 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | Translated by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40868/40868-h/40868-h.html |
Context
“The true original freedom re-enters at this moment, which, in the sense indicated, may be regarded as a restitutio in integrum. The peace and quietness upon the countenance of most dead persons seems to have its origin in this. Quiet and easy is, as a rule, the death of every good man: but to die willingly, to die gladly, to die joyfully, is the prerogative of the resigned, of him who surrenders and denies the will to live. For only he wills to die really, and not merely apparently, and consequently he needs and desires no continuance of his person. The existence which we know he willingly gives up: what he gets instead of it is in our eyes nothing, because our existence is, with reference to that, nothing.”
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