beklage:
Denn es ist das Machtige
Was man dir auch sage_:

--it is no use to complain of low aims; for, whatever people may say,
they rule the world.

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Schopenhauer is probably here
making one of his most virulent attacks upon Hegel; in this case on
account of what he thought to be the philosopher's abject servility
to the government of his day. Though the Hegelian system has been the
fruitful mother of many liberal ideas, there can be no doubt that
Hegel's influence, in his own lifetime, was an effective support of
Prussian bureaucracy.]

On the other hand, the man who is born with enough to live upon is
generally of a somewhat independent turn of mind; he is accustomed
to keep his head up; he has not learned all the arts of the beggar;
perhaps he even presumes a little upon the possession of talents
which, as he ought to know, can never compete with cringing
mediocrity; in the long run he comes to recognize the inferiority of
those who are placed over his head, and when they try to put insults
upon him, he becomes refractory and shy. This is not the way to get
on in the world. Nay, such a man may at least incline to the opinion
freely expressed by Voltaire: _We have only two days to live; it
is not worth our while to spend them_ in cringing to contemptible
rascals. But alas! let me observe by the way, that _contemptible
rascal_ is an attribute which may be predicated of an abominable
number of people. What Juvenal says--it is difficult to rise if your
poverty is greater than your talent--

_Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi_--

is more applicable to a career of art and literature than to a
political and social ambition.

Wife and children I have not reckoned amongst a man's possessions: he
is rather in their possession. It would be easier to include friends
under that head; but a man's friends belong to him not a whit more
than he belongs to them.

CHAPTER IV.

POSITION, OR A MAN'S PLACE IN THE ESTIMATION OF OTHERS.

_Section 1.--Reputation_.

By a peculiar weakness of human nature, people generally think too
much about the opinion which others form of them; although the
slightest reflection will show that this opinion, whatever it may
be, is not in itself essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to
understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other
people have a good opinion of him, or say anything