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.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Since good food is better than bad food, add the Joy of Cooking to your library. It's a proven classic.

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.

http://jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/the-ending-of-time/1980-04-01-jiddu-krishnamurti-the-ending-of-time-the-roots-of-psychological-conflict

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.

Can people just reccomend some books?

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.

-"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.

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

You forgot the Bartenders Bible. Not everyone likes straight whisky, bloody fools that they are.

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.

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

M

seven story mountain - Thomas Merton

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.

Is there any textbook or general book on ethics concerning primarily this question?

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.

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

Eh, Schopenhauer is just promoting the kind of life he lived.

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).

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.

Philosophy as A Way Of Life by Pierre Hadot is good. Or What is Ancient Philosophy - by the same author.

https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Way-Life-Spiritual-Exercises/dp/0631180338
https://www.amazon.com/What-Ancient-Philosophy-Pierre-Hadot/dp/0674013735