Introduction

This is the most famous part of Parerga and Paralipomena, the essays of Schopenhauer's old age, and the work that at last made him famous. Unlike the pessimistic metaphysics of his main work, here he steps back and, like a seasoned elder, teaches how to live as wisely as possible in a world that is in essence full of suffering. He divides the things that determine human happiness into three classes: what a man is, his health, character and intelligence; what a man has, his property; and what a man is in the eyes of others, his reputation and rank. The first, he holds, matters most: 'What a man is in himself is far more important than what he has or what he represents to others.' He writes on health, solitude, vanity and the ages of life, and adds a series of maxims for conduct. Clear, witty and sharp, it is a model of German prose, and deeply influenced Tolstoy, Nietzsche and Thomas Mann.