In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for breif periods. All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality, of the forms under which the will to live is objectified. 2, ch.14, sct.164 5. Nature Shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point. National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country.
Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable. Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect. How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human conciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.