Counsels and Maxims

Counsels and Maxims is the practical companion to The Wisdom of Life — drawn from the same Parerga und Paralipomena (1851) and intended by Schopenhauer as a "field manual" for the conduct of ordinary life. Across fifty-three numbered sections, he offers rules for solitude and society, for the use of time, for dealing with insult and disappointment, for what to read and what to forget. The voice is unmistakable: severe, witty, contemptuous of comforting illusions, yet genuinely useful in a way most philosophy is not. Generations of readers have kept this book on their bedside table the way others keep Marcus Aurelius. Translated by T. Bailey Saunders.