Q0069

Arthur Schopenhauer

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Compassion is the basis of morality.
Thinker Arthur Schopenhauer
School Voluntarism
Source Parerga und Paralipomena (on compassion)
Theme Love
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Parerga und Paralipomena (on compassion), within the tradition of Voluntarism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of love, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Arthur Schopenhauer's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Arthur Schopenhauer. (n.d.). Compassion is the basis of morality. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0069

MLA: Arthur Schopenhauer. “Compassion is the basis of morality..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0069.

Chicago: Arthur Schopenhauer. “Compassion is the basis of morality..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0069.

Same thinker

More from Arthur Schopenhauer

  1. The world is my representation.
  2. Reading means thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own.
  3. Solitude is the lot of all outstanding minds.
  4. All life is suffering.
  5. What a person is contributes more to his happiness than what he has.

All quotations by Arthur Schopenhauer

Same theme

More on love

  1. Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
  2. A friend is another self.
  3. If you wish to be loved, love.
  4. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
  5. Mencius said: Those who love others are constantly loved by others; those who respect others are constantly respected by others.

Browse the love theme