Unlike many who seem to believe that freedom of movement (since 2020 extinguished in the EU) must mean an end to national borders, I have only felt that borders should be recognised as the product of political will and history. In the entrance to the museum at the Invalides in Paris there is a quote
As a schoolboy I remember being told that the surest way of finding out if any given English proposition made sense or not was to try to translate it into Latin, French, or German.
The Grinch who stole happiness
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His Highness of Pessimism, Arthur Schopenhauer
Don’t get your hopes up
“In the Presence of Schopenhauer,” by Michel Houellebecq (Polity Press)
Every volume by Arthur Schopenhauer, and in particular “The World as Will and Representation,” should carry a warning label: Not to be read before the age of 30, especially by those maintaining a “Romantic” outlook on life. Why? because the German philosopher (1788-1860) isn’t out to bolster our illusions but to dispel them. In other words, no dangling carrot of false hope. In “The Pessimist’s Handbook” he writes: “For the safest way of not being miserable is not to expect to be happy.”