Studies in Pessimism

If you want Schopenhauer at his most concentrated, this is where to begin. Studies in Pessimism gathers the bleakest, sharpest, and most quotable essays from Parerga und Paralipomena — On the Sufferings of the World, The Vanity of Existence, On Suicide, On Women, On Noise, A Few Parables — into a single short volume that has shocked and delighted readers since its first English edition in 1890. There is no system to be learned here; only Schopenhauer's central conviction, that existence is a problem rather than a gift, pressed against subject after subject until the diamond-hard form emerges. Borges read it. Mann read it. So did Wittgenstein. Translated by T. Bailey Saunders.