The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims (Paperback)

'This collection brings together two of Arthur Schopenhauer's most respected works, wherein the philosopher shares his views on life and what he believes to be follies of human behavior. In The Wisdom of Life, an essay from Schopenhauer's final work, Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), the philosopher favors individual strength of will and independent, reasoned deliberation over the tendency to act on irrational impulses. He examines the ways in which life can be arranged to derive the highest degree of pleasure and success, presents guidelines to achieving this full and rich manner of living, and advises that even a life well lived must always aspire to grander heights. Abounding in subjects of enduring relevance, Schopenhauer's highly readable work appears here in an excellent translation. ''Counsels and Maxims'', Schopenhauer's most respected works, wherein the philosopher shares his views on life and what he believes to be follies of human behavior. In The Counsels and Maxims he discusses how to order our lives to obtain the greatest amount of pleasure and success; then he offers guidelines for living life to its fullest. But for Schopenhauer a life well lived should always reach beyond itself to a higher plane. The book has five short essays: 'General Rules,' 'Our Relation to Ourselves,' 'Our Relation to Others,' 'Worldly Fortune,' and 'The Ages of Life.'' About author: 'Arthur Schopenhauer (22 February 1788 â€' 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. '