The Wisdom of Life

Nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) championed individual strength of will and independent, reasoned deliberation above the irrational impulses that animated most of society. In The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims, two essays from his last work, Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), 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.