"The animal basically follows its impulses, which are limited to hunger, thirst, the need to sleep and everything related to mating; it lives in a narrow sphere. To the human being, on the other hand, life comes to him through reason, in the form of wealth, women, honor, power, fame, etc., which fuels his will to live, his yearning to live. Reason makes satisfaction, artificially, a refined enjoyment. Thus death is detested with all one's soul and the mere mention of such a word tormentingly contracts the hearts of the majority, and the fear of death turns into anguish of death and despair, when human beings cast their eyes upon it. On the contrary, life is loved with passion. Accordingly, in the human being the will to death - the innermost impulse of his essence - is no longer concealed by the will to live as simply as in the animal, but disappears completely into the depths, from where it only manifests itself, from time to time, as a deep longing for tranquility."
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Academics from GermanyPoets from GermanyPhilosophical pessimistsAntinatalistsPhilosophers from Germany
Original Language: English
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Filosofía De La Redención: Antología (2011), trans. Sandra Baquedano Jer, chapter III (Teleología del exterminio), pages 71-72,
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philipp_Mainl%C3%A4nder
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Philipp Mainländer
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