You complain that this philosophy is comfortless! But Schopenhauer sees life through Schopenhauer's eyes, and tells the truth about it as he sees it. He does not care for your likes and dislikes. If you want to hear soft platitudes, he advises you to go to a non-conformist church--read the newspapers, go somewhere else, but not to the philosopher who cares only for Truth. Although Schopenhauer's picture of the world is gloomy and somber, there is nothing weak or cowardly in his writings, and the extent to which he is read, proves he is not depressing. Since a happy life is impossible, he says the highest that a man can attain to is the fate of a hero. A man must take misfortune quietly, because he knows that very many dreadful things may happen in the course of life. He must look upon the trouble of the moment as only a very small part of that which will probably come. We must not expect very much from life, but learn to accommodate ourselves to a world where all is relative and no perfect state exists. Let us look misfortune in the face and meet it with courage and calmness! Fate is cruel and men are miserable. Life is synonymous with suffering; positive happiness a fata morgana, an illusion. Only negative happiness, the cessation of suffering, is possible, and can be obtained by the annihilation of the Will-to-Live. But it is not suicide that can deliver us from the pains of existence. Suicide, according to Schopenhauer, frustrates the attainment of the highest moral aim by the fact that, for a real release from this world of misery, it substitutes one that is merely apparent. For death merely destroys the phenomenon, that is, the body, and never my inmost being, or the universal Will. Suicide can deliver me merely from my phenomenal existence, and not from my real self, which can not die. How, then, can man be released from this life of misery and pain? Where is the road that leads to Salvation? Slow and weary is the way of redemption. The deliverance from life and its sufferings is the freedom of the intellect from its creator and despot, the Will. The intellect, freed from the bondage of the Will, sees through the veil of selfhood into the unity of all being, and finds that he who has done wrong to another has done wrong to his own self. For selfhood--the asserting of the Ego--is the root of all evil. Covetousness and sensuality are the causes of misery. Sympathy is the basis of all true morality, and only through renunciation, through self-sacrifice, and universal benevolence, can salvation be obtained.