The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer

Better known for his forbidding masterwork on the world as will and idea, Schopenhauer here writes in a plainer, worldlier voice about how to live. He weighs what actually makes a person happy, sorting life into what you are, what you have, and how you appear to others, and argues that character and inner resources matter far more than wealth or reputation. His counsel is bracingly unsentimental, shadowed by his famous pessimism yet full of shrewd, quotable observation about health, solitude, boredom, and the management of one’s own mind. These essays became his most widely read work. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.