The Wisdom of Life

About this book

How can we live as happily as possible in a world that Arthur Schopenhauer believed was, on the whole, full of suffering? In this practical essay he divides the good things of life into three kinds: what a person is, such as health, character and intelligence; what a person has, property; and how a person stands in the eyes of others, reputation, rank and fame. He argues that the first matters far more than the other two: a cheerful temperament and a rich inner life are worth more than any fortune.

Context and significance

The essay comes from Schopenhauer's Parerga and Paralipomena, published in 1851, whose popular essays at last made the old philosopher (1788–1860) famous after decades of neglect. This translation is by Thomas Bailey Saunders. Compare the Stoic Enchiridion of Epictetus.

About the author

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) was the son of a wealthy Danzig merchant and a successful novelist. His great work, The World as Will and Representation, appeared in 1818 and was almost entirely ignored; when he taught in Berlin, he scheduled his lectures at the same hour as Hegel's, and almost no students came.

He spent the rest of his life in Frankfurt with a succession of poodles, convinced of his own genius, until his collection of essays, Parerga and Paralipomena, finally brought him fame in 1851; a selection is in the library as Essays. He was the first major Western philosopher to draw seriously on Indian thought, calling the Upanishads the consolation of his life.