• Johnpveiga
    8
    What should i read to know how to live my life, to know what the good life is and how to aquire it?
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Start with a good dictionary and then any and every book you can find.

    None of this will help you to live your life though. The simple fact that no one is living your life means that no one can help you to live it.

    If you want to live the good life you will first have to define what it will be like. Only then then can you start looking for information to help you reach your goals.

    And if you are really looking for advice, don't waste your money on books about how to live the good life. That will only help the person that wrote it live a good one.
  • BC
    13.1k
    Since good food is better than bad food, add the Joy of Cooking to your library. It's a proven classic.
  • John Doe
    200
    Run out and buy yourself a copy of The Brothers Karamazov, like, right now. Don't ask why, don't read a bunch of stuff that's going to contextualize it for you, just go experience it as soon as you can.
  • Pattern-chaser
    1.8k
    What should i read to know how to live my life, to know what the good life is and how to acquire it?Johnpveiga

    There are many, many, useful responses to your question. Of them all, the most valuable is this:

    If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
  • Johnpveiga
    8
    Can people just reccomend some books?
  • Moliere
    4k
    Nicomachean Ethics -- Aristotle

    Meditations -- Marcus Aurelius

    Not as direct as those two, but this website (surprisingly named epicurus.net !) offers a selection of works from Epicurus -- in that same vein, if you want a complete text, there is On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, a later Epicurean.


    They don't all agree with one another, but their main interest lies in living a good life.
  • Ying
    397
    -"Outlines of Pyrrhonism" book 3, specifically ch. 25 ("Whether there is an art of living"). ch. 26 ("Whether people acquire the art of living") and ch. 27 ("Whether the art of living can be taught").

    -"Parerga und Paralipomena" vol. 1, ch. "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life".

    -"Moral Letters to Lucilius" by Seneca the Younger. He also wrote several dialogues on the matter.

    -You might want to look at "De Beata Vita" by st. Augustine too, if you so happen to be christian or interested in a religiously colored view on the matter.
  • Marcus de Brun
    440
    In no particular order:
    Walden Pond
    The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
    Catch 22
    The Outsider (audiobook, read by Kenneth Branaugh)
    A Confederacy of Dunces
    Waiting for Godot
    The Story of Philosophy By Will Durant
    The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud
    Ullyses by Joyce (audiobook \Unabridged RTE players)
    Dubliners by Joyce
    Crime and Punishment
    The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
    Einstein's Relativity
    Either the Bible, the Koran, or a good introduction to Buddhism.
    All of Donald Trumps tweets
    Some basic biology texts and something on Climate Change
    Zarathustra
    Beyond Good and Evil
    Schopenhauers the world as will and representation.
    Spinoza' Ethics
    Jamie Olliver's ten minute meals
    A good book on how to have good sex (if indeed you are averse to watching porn)

    When your done reading... learn the meaning of good whiskey (teelings or green spot are a good place to start), and start livin the shit out of life!

    M
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    You forgot the Bartenders Bible. Not everyone likes straight whisky, bloody fools that they are.
  • BrianW
    999


    Read this:

    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
    Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

    If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

    By Rudyard Kipling.
  • Marcus de Brun
    440


    I left out books on the 'water of life' because the price tag and the taste buds are the general arbiter elegantarium.

    M
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    seven story mountain - Thomas Merton
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    Understandable, but I still believe that young people should have some sort of starting point as a guide to getting to know what one's taste buds might like.
    I spent years loving guzzling Robisons' Bitter until I went to a city pub and found out there where other things to drink. Just joking, i drank it because i liked it.
  • Johnpveiga
    8
    Is there any textbook or general book on ethics concerning primarily this question?
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    Ehhh... none... or all of them. It's hard to put your finger on one book, because every situation and circumstance in life is unique. Ultimately you have to find your own way.

    Is there any textbook or general book on ethics concerning primarily this question?Johnpveiga
    What kind of answer are you looking for? Each person is unique.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    -"Parerga und Paralipomena" vol. 1, ch. "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life".Ying
    Eh, Schopenhauer is just promoting the kind of life he lived.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    Is there any textbook or general book on ethics concerning primarily this question?Johnpveiga
    Let's put it this way.

    Number 1. Follow all the moral rules, and be a good person.

    Number 2. Find out what you desire, and find a way to get it (while respecting 1).
  • Johnpveiga
    8
    im looking for something that would give me perspective into cyncism, epicurneism, stocism and other ethical philosophies. I already have a good understanding of cyncism, epicurneism and stocism but i want to know more about the other ethical philosophies.
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