The Wisdom of Life- Artur Schopenhauer- Book Summary and Key Insights

 

What is the book about?

 

This books is  a compendium of concepts and strategies to live a happy and successful life. 

The author has put forward many concepts in a unique way. His thoughts on reputation and honour are novel and refreshing.  He opines that the reputation, honour and reputation are over rated, it is not worth dying for, because it is nothing more than the opinion of others about it.

He has extensively described how worrying about other people’s opinions is the main cause of many of the troubles in life. And how one can face criticism, and humiliation without losing one’ peace of mind.

The author points out how our happiness is determined by our inner self than the outer influences. Also, a man is not affected by the event but his judgment of it.

It is a great mistake to sacrifice our health in the pursuit of other pleasures. We don’t generally realize this truth until we are faced with the ill health ourselves.

Schopenhauer has touched upon a very important point that the wise people of all ages have always said the same thing, but the majority have also acted the same way as they have been acting since ages. That is the reason that the most of the majority are living a mediocre life. The following quote from the book did brought a smile  on my face:

“The wise in all ages have always said the same thing, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done just the opposite; and so it will continues.”

  

Summary of the Book

 

Division of the Subject

 

1.        The fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes:

i)          What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the world; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education.

ii)         What a man has: that is, property and possessions of every kind.

iii)        How a man stands in the estimation of others: by which he is understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellowmen, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. This is shown by their opinion of him.

2.         The principal element in a man’s well-being-is what he is made of, his inner constitution. For this is the immediate source of that inward satisfaction or dissatisfaction resulting from the sum total of his sensations, desires and thoughts; whilst his surroundings, on the other hand, exert only an indirect influence upon him.

3.         The world in which a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks at it, and so it proves different to different men; to it is barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning.

4.         Every event, in order to be realized and appreciated, required the co-operation of two factors, namely, a subject and an object. When the objective or external factor in an experience is actually the same, but the subjective or personal appreciation of it varies, the event is just as much a different one in the eyes of different persons as if the object factors had not been alike.

5.         It is clear, that our happiness depends in a great degree upon what we are, upon our individuality, whilst destiny is generally taken to mean only what we have, or our reputation.

6.         Health outweighs all other blessings so much that one may really say that a healthy beggar is happier than an ailing king.

 

Personality, or What a Man Is

 

7.         What a man is, and so what he has in his own person, is always the chief thing to consider; for his individuality accompanies him always everywhere, and gives its color to all his experience.

8.         The greatest follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

9.      A man who paints everything black, who constantly fear the worst and takes measures accordingly, will not be disappointed so often in this world, as one who always looks upon the bright side of things.

10.      Two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.

11.      Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it.

12.      It is great piece of folly to sacrifice the inner for the outer man, to give the whole or the greater part of one’s quiet, leisure and independence for splendor, rank, pomp, titles and honour.

13.      The ordinary life of every day, so far as it is not moved by passion, is tedious and insipid; and if it is so moved, it soon becomes painful. Those alone are happy whom nature has favoured with some superfluity of intellect, something beyond what is just necessary to carry out the behests of their will; for it enables them to lead an intellectual life as well, a life unattended by pain and full of vivid interests.

 

Property, or What a Man Has

 

14.      Epicurus divides the needs of mankind into three classes:

i)          Natural and Necessary needs, such as, when not satisfied, produce pain,- food and clothing , needs which can easily be satisfied.

ii)         Those needs which, though natural, are not necessary, such as the gratification of certain of the senses. These needs are rather more difficult to satisfy.

iii)        The third class consists of needs which are neither natural nor necessary, the need of luxury and prodigality, show and splendor, which never come to an end, and are very hard to satisfy.

15.      It is difficult to rise if your poverty is greater than your talent- Juvenal

 

Position, or a Man’s Place in the Estimation of Others

 

16.      Every man’s chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people’s opinions; and, consequently, that the actual conditions of our life,- health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, home, are a hundred time more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us.

17.      If people insist that honour is dearer than life itself, what they actually mean is that existence and well-being are nothing compared with other people’s opinion.

This may be only as exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world.

18.      In all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half the troubles and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score; it is the anxiety which is at the bottom of all the feeling of self- importance.

19.      The lust of fame is the last that a wise man shakes off- Tacitus

20.      Once when somebody kicked Socrates, the patience with which he took the insult surprised one of his friends. Do you think, said Socrates, that if an ass happened to kick me, I should resent it? On another occasion, when he was asked, Has not the fellow abused and insulted you? No, was his answer, what he says is not addressed to me.

21.      True appreciation of his own value will make a man really indifferent to insult. Insult and depreciation are like a battle in which the loser wins.

22       The man who seeks to do what is good and genuine, must avoid what is bad, and be ready to defy the opinions of the mob, nay, even to despise it and its misleaders.

23.      Some people obtain fame and others deserve it.

24.      A man’s happiness lies, not in the fact that posterity will hear of him, but that he is the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured up and studied of years.

25.      Greatness of soul, or wealth of intellect, is what makes a man happy.

 

My Top 5 Key Insights

1.         We look at the world through the filters of our own personality, biases, prejudices, preferences, and dislikes. What we are within the world without appears the same.           

 

2.        Our feelings, thoughts, can influence us only so far as we bring these things to life.

3.         Our happiness resides within us, yet we keep searching for it, all over the place, like a musk deer searching for the musk that lay hidden in it’s naval.

4.         A man’s happiness consists in the free exercise or our highest faculties or free will.      

5.         When we are comfortable in our own skin, value ourselves as a great personality, no criticism, insult can affect us.

Top quotes From the Book

1.        The happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings- Metrodorus

2.         Socrates saw various articles of luxury spread out for sale, he exclaimed: How much there is in the world I do not want.

3.         What a man has in himself is, then, the chief element in his happiness.

4.         Honour is, on its objective side, other people’s opinion of what we are worth; on its subjective side, it is the respect we pay to this opinion.

5.         Men are not influenced by things, but by their thoughts about things-Epictetus.

6.         Will without intellect is the most vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead, whom in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he is made.