"Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal"
About this Quote
The specific intent isn’t to celebrate novelty; it’s to puncture the illusion that the world owes us continuity. Schopenhauer’s broader philosophy treats life as driven by a restless will: desire generates striving, striving generates dissatisfaction, and satisfaction evaporates into the next want. In that frame, change isn’t liberation. It’s the mechanism of suffering, the conveyor belt that keeps craving alive. The triple synonym pile-up is rhetorical overkill on purpose, like a hammering insistence: stop bargaining with reality.
Subtextually, the quote doubles as both warning and anesthesia. Warning, because clinging to stable identities, relationships, or social orders is a recipe for repeated shock. Anesthesia, because it reframes loss as structural rather than personal; the universe isn’t singling you out, it’s just doing what it does. Written in a 19th-century Europe rattled by revolution, industrial acceleration, and collapsing certainties, the line reads less like an abstract metaphysical claim and more like a philosopher watching modernity speed up and deciding the only honest “absolute” is flux.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Schopenhauer, Arthur. (2026, January 18). Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/change-alone-is-eternal-perpetual-immortal-384/
Chicago Style
Schopenhauer, Arthur. "Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/change-alone-is-eternal-perpetual-immortal-384/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/change-alone-is-eternal-perpetual-immortal-384/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.







