You have heard of German philosophers? In popular lore, the most widely known ones tend to be regarded as hopeless romantics, or convoluted thinkers, or outright whack jobs.
Which is a little exaggerated, and since much of the great thinking in Western culture had already been done some 2000 years ago or earlier, we should be lenient towards our French, German, British, Danish etc. thinkers of a few hundred years ago.
Saying something cool when you are going up against Socrates, for example, is hard.
But here is a tip to German government officials trying to be nice to little old ladies on their 90th birthday.
Do not, repeat, do not send a birthday card with a Schopenauer quote.
If you must quote from Schopenhauer, don't use this famous one:
Each day is a little life:
every waking and rising a little birth,
every
fresh morning a little youth,
every going to rest and sleep a little
death.
It just feels a wee bit off, reminding a 90 year old constituent about the 'little death', please avoid it.
We know, we know, the mayor or his aide did a google search and, being very busy people, did not read the quotation beyond the first line "Each day is a little life".
We can all agree on that first observation, and a British writer might have left it at that. A Frenchman might have added a scientific definition of "life" for the sake of enlightenment.
Trust a German writer to do some serious explaining and to end up in a place that's fine for your average 30 or 40 year old mayor but a little delicate when addressed to a 90 year old great grandmother.
She has seen the big death so often in her lifetime that any mention, little, big or whatever sized is not as uplifting as family and friends want that birthday to be.
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