Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Gdańsk, Poland in 1788. Shortly after his father likely committed suicide in 1805, Schopenhauer’s mother moved to Weimar, Germany so she could pursue her writing career, and Schopenhauer soon followed. Schopenhauer started studying metaphysics at University of Göttingen in 1809. At age 25, Schopenhauer published his first book, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which established him as an influential philosopher. His writings would influence many other great thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and others. Schopenhauer died of heart failure in 1860, at age 72.