The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer the Wisdom of Life

_himself_ a man can never escape, nor any power of time avail to change the path on which his life is cast:--_Wie an dem Tag, der dich der Welt verliehen, Dïe Sonne stand zum Grusse der Planeten, Bist alsobald und fort und fort gediehen, Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten. So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen, So tagten schon Sybillen und Propheten; Und keine Zeit, und keine Macht zerstückelt Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt_. The only thing that stands in our power to achieve, is to make the most advantageous use possible of the personal qualities we possess, and accordingly to follow such pursuits only as will call them into play, to strive after the kind of perfection of which they admit and to avoid every other; consequently, to choose the position, occupation and manner of life which are most suitable for their development. Imagine a man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got,--compelled, that is, to leave unused the powers in which he is pre-eminently strong; a man placed like this will never feel happy all his life through. Even more miserable will be the lot of the man with intellectual powers of a very high order, who has to leave them undeveloped and unemployed, in the pursuit of a calling which does not require them, some bodily labor, perhaps, for which his strength is insufficient. Still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care, especially in youth, to avoid the precipice of presumption, and not ascribe to ourselves a superfluity of power which is not there.…