Counsels and Maxims: the Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: Great Classics

About Counsels and Maxims and 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 Counsels and Maxims and Wisdom of Life, 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.