Essay on Health And Intellect Are The Two Blessings of Life TextVirgil says that the greatest wealth is health a spanish proverb says that a man who is too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. In the process of gathering more wealth, For it is the truth that health is the wealth of all wealth below is a free excerpt of essay on health is wealth from anti essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. For it is the truth that health is the wealth of all wealth _ title: wisdom of life: division of the subject author: arthur schopenhauer more titles by schopenhauer aristotle 1 divides the blessings of life into three classes those which come to us from without, those of the soul, and those of the body. Keeping nothing of this division but the number, i observe that the fundamental differences in human lot may be reduced to three distinct classes: footnote 1: _eth. 1 what a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. 3 how a man stands in the estimation of others: by which is to be understood, as everybody knows, what a man is in the eyes of his fellowmen, or, more strictly, the light in which they regard him. Music Homework HelpThis is shown by their opinion of him and their opinion is in its turn manifested by the honor in which he is held, and by his rank and reputation. The differences which come under the first head are those which nature herself has set between man and man and from this fact alone we may at once infer that they influence the happiness or unhappiness of mankind in a much more vital and radical way than those contained under the two following heads, which are merely the effect of human arrangements. Compared with _genuine personal advantages_, such as a great mind or a great heart, all the privileges of rank or birth, even of royal birth, are but as kings on the stage, to kings in real life. The same thing was said long ago by metrodorus, the earliest disciple of epicurus, who wrote as the title of one of his chapters, _the happiness we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we obtain from our surroundings_ 1 and it is an obvious fact, which cannot be called in question, that the principal element in a man's well being, indeed, in the whole tenor of his existence, 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 a mediate or indirect influence upon him. This is why the same external events or circumstances affect no two people alike even with perfectly similar surroundings every one lives in a world of his own. For a man has immediate apprehension only of his own ideas, feelings and volitions the outer world can influence him only in so far as it brings these to life. 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 one it is barren, dull, and superficial to another rich, interesting, and full of meaning. This is in the highest degree the case with many of goethe's and byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of phantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. In plain language, every man is pent up within the limits of his own consciousness, and cannot directly get beyond those limits any more than he can get beyond his own skin so external aid is not of much use to him. On the stage, one man is a prince, another a minister, a third a servant or a soldier or a general, and so on, mere external differences: the inner reality, the kernel of all these appearances is the same a poor player, with all the anxieties of his lot. Differences of rank and wealth give every man his part to play, but this by no means implies a difference of inward happiness and pleasure here, too, there is the same being in all a poor mortal, with his hardships and troubles. Though these may, indeed, in every case proceed from dissimilar causes, they are in their essential nature much the same in all their forms, with degrees of intensity which vary, no doubt, but in no wise correspond to the part a man has to play, to the presence or absence of position and wealth. Since everything which exists or happens for a man exists only in his consciousness and happens for it alone, the most essential thing for a man is the constitution of this consciousness, which is in most cases far more important than the circumstances which go to form its contents. All the pride and pleasure of the world, mirrored in the dull consciousness of a fool, are poor indeed compared with the imagination of cervantes writing his _don quixote_ in a miserable prison. The objective half of life and reality is in the hand of fate, and accordingly takes various forms in different cases: the subjective half is ourself, and in essentials is always remains the same. Hence the life of every man is stamped with the same character throughout, however much his external circumstances may alter it is like a series of variations on a single theme. An animal, under whatever circumstances it is placed, remains within the narrow limits to which nature has irrevocably consigned it so that our endeavors to make a pet happy must always keep within the compass of its nature, and be restricted to what it can feel. How to Write Better Papers In College
© Copyright 2013 - 2016 - www.writehomestudio.com.
All rights reserved. |