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So the first and most essential element in our life's happiness is what we are,—our personality
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“So the first and most essential element in our life's happiness is what we are,—our personality”

Arthur Schopenhauer

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Source
The Wisdom of Life
Date
1851
English wording
T. Bailey Saunders — Translator · from German
Meaning

Meaning of “So the first and most essential element in…”

The line locates a central condition of happiness in personality because it accompanies a person across changing circumstances, possessions and public opinion.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The surrounding argument contrasts what a person is, has and represents to others.

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Themes

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GrowthHappinessIdentityInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeMeaning of Life Quotes About What Makes Life MatterMindsetMotivation For LifePersonal Growth
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less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met
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“less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which it is met”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

The maxim shifts attention from events alone to the way a person receives and interprets them, making response and temperament part of Schopenhauer’s account of well-being.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. This is a philosophical claim about temperament, not a denial that external circumstances can matter greatly.

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With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to hope.
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“With the first word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to hope.”

Helen Keller · Optimism: An Essay · 1903
Meaning & context

Language is remembered as opening several capacities at once—thought, hope and a fuller experience of living—rather than merely adding a vocabulary item.

Source details

Optimism: An Essay (1903), Project Gutenberg #31622. Keller is reflecting on her own early experience of language and education.

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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
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“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

Robert Louis Stevenson · Familiar Studies of Men and Books · 1882
Meaning & context

Stevenson’s formulation links self-acceptance with development: a worthwhile life is not imitation of someone else’s pattern but fuller realization of capacities that belong to one’s own character.

Source details

Familiar Studies of Men and Books, essay ‘Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions,’ section V, Project Gutenberg #425, transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition. The surrounding paragraph quotes several Thoreau statements, but ‘To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming...’ is Stevenson's own connective judgment before he returns to quoted Thoreau language. It therefore remains Stevenson literary-biographical criticism rather than a Thoreau quotation or a clinical rule about self-development.

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To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
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“To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”

Walter Pater · The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry · 1873
Meaning & context

The famous image defines success through intensity and alertness of experience rather than conventional achievement, fitting Pater’s larger argument against living automatically through habit.

Source details

The Renaissance, Conclusion; Project Gutenberg #2398. The metaphor belongs to Pater’s aesthetic philosophy and should not be reduced to generic productivity advice.

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the first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary
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“the first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary”

Arthur Schopenhauer · Counsels and Maxims · 1851
Meaning & context

The age-specific metaphor presents later experience as reinterpretation of earlier life, suggesting that events can acquire coherence only after enough time has supplied comparison and perspective.

Source details

Counsels and Maxims, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10715. The numerical life span reflects Schopenhauer’s nineteenth-century aphoristic framing rather than a modern lifespan rule.

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