The Project Gutenberg EBook of Counsels and Maxims, by Arthur Schopenhauer

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Title: Counsels and Maxims
From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer

Author: Arthur Schopenhauer

Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10715]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ESSAYS

OF

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

TRANSLATED BY

T. BAILEY SAUNDERS, M.A.

COUNSELS AND MAXIMS.

_Le bonheur n'est pas chose aisee: il est
tres difficile de le trouver en nous, et impossible
de le trouver ailleurs_.

CHAMFORT.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION
I. GENERAL RULES
II. OUR RELATION TO OURSELVES
III. OUR RELATION TO OTHERS
IV. WORLDLY FORTUNE
V. THE AGES OF LIFE

INTRODUCTION.

If my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of
counsels and maxims for the guidance of life, I should have to repeat
the numerous rules--some of them excellent--which have been drawn
up by thinkers of all ages, from Theognis and Solomon[1] down to La
Rochefoucauld; and, in so doing, I should inevitably entail upon the
reader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. But the fact is that in
this work I make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any
other of my writings.

[Footnote 1: I refer to the proverbs and maxims ascribed, in the Old
Testament, to the king of that name.]

An author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great
measure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. For his double
loss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting
that a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the
guidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business.
I have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth
communicating--thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been
uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by any one else;
so that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been
already achieved in the immense field.

However, by way of in