Essays of Schopenhauer

Excerpt: 'When Schopenhauer was asked where he wished to be buried, he answered, 'Anywhere; they will find me;' and the stone that marks his grave at Frankfort bears merely the inscription 'Arthur Schopenhauer,' without even the date of his birth or death. Schopenhauer, the pessimist, had a sufficiently optimistic conviction that his message to the world would ultimately be listened to—a conviction that never failed him during a lifetime of disappointments, of neglect in quarters where perhaps he would have most cherished appreciation; a conviction that only showed some signs of being justified a few years before his death. Schopenhauer was no opportunist; he was not even conciliatory; he never hesitated to declare his own faith in himself, in his principles, in his philosophy; he did not ask to be listened to as a matter of courtesy but as a right—a right for which he would struggle, for which he fought, and which has in the course of time, it may be admitted, been conceded to him.'