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In December 1818 Arthur Schopenhauer, then thirty, published The World as Will and Representation, which argues that beneath everything lies a blind, endless striving he called the will, and that this is why life is suffering. It sold very poorly. When he lectured in Berlin, he scheduled his classes at the same hour as Hegel’s, and only five students came. He moved to Frankfurt, lived alone with a succession of poodles, one named Atman, and called the Upanishads “the solace of my life”. Fame arrived only in 1851, with the essays of Parerga and Paralipomena, nine years before his death. His readers have included Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann and Samuel Beckett. The ten writers below share his questions: why desire never rests, whether art or compassion can quiet it, and how to live honestly once you have admitted that life hurts.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Philosophy · Pessimism · Eastern thought · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Schopenhauer, start with Giacomo Leopardi, the Italian poet whom Schopenhauer himself praised for treating the misery of existence more thoroughly than anyone. Friedrich Nietzsche began as his disciple and spent his career arguing with him, and Irvin D. Yalom’s novel The Schopenhauer Cure (2005) tests his philosophy inside a therapy group. Further down are the novelists he changed, a Buddhist teacher who reaches different conclusions about suffering, and a modern guide to his consolations.
10 authors like Arthur Schopenhauer
Where to start if you loved Arthur Schopenhauer
If you want the poet Schopenhauer admired, read Giacomo Leopardi.
Canti and the Operette morali: nature indifferent, and life seen without illusion.
If you want the argument back, read Friedrich Nietzsche.
The Birth of Tragedy: Schopenhauer’s student turning his pessimism into affirmation.
If you want Schopenhauer in a novel, read Irvin D. Yalom.
The Schopenhauer Cure: a therapy group, a dying therapist, and his philosophy put to the test.
If you want a different answer to suffering, read Thich Nhat Hanh.
Peace Is Every Step: the Buddhist starting point, with compassion instead of resignation.
If you want to read Schopenhauer himself, start with the essays.
R. J. Hollingdale’s Penguin selection Essays and Aphorisms draws on Parerga and Paralipomena (1851); move on to The World as Will and Representation (1818) after.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Arthur Schopenhauer
Who writes like Arthur Schopenhauer?
Giacomo Leopardi, Friedrich Nietzsche and Irvin D. Yalom are the closest matches. Schopenhauer himself praised Leopardi’s treatment of human misery, Nietzsche began as his disciple and then argued against him, and Yalom’s The Schopenhauer Cure puts his philosophy into a novel.
What should I read after The World as Will and Representation?
Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872) for the first great response to it, and Tolstoy’s A Confession (1882), which quotes its closing paragraph. For fiction, read Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901).
Which Schopenhauer book should I read first?
Start with the essays from Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), his first popular success, available in selections such as R. J. Hollingdale’s Essays and Aphorisms. The World as Will and Representation (1818) is his main work but much longer and harder.
Is Schopenhauer like Nietzsche?
Nietzsche shared Schopenhauer’s picture of a world driven by striving and suffering, and wrote “Schopenhauer as Educator” in 1874. He then rejected Schopenhauer’s answer, resignation, and argued for saying yes to life.
Was Schopenhauer influenced by Buddhism?
Yes. He drew on Buddhism and the Upanishads, which he called “the solace of my life”. Thich Nhat Hanh starts from the same truth about suffering but reaches compassion rather than resignation.
Is there a novel about Schopenhauer?
Irvin D. Yalom’s The Schopenhauer Cure (2005) follows a therapy group joined by a man who lives by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, alternating with a short biography of Schopenhauer. Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks has a famous chapter in which a character reads him.
Was Schopenhauer a misogynist?
His 1851 essay “On Women” is widely read as misogynist; it says, among other things, that woman is by nature meant to obey. In 1827 a Berlin court ruled against him after a seamstress, Caroline Marquet, sued him after an altercation at his lodgings in 1821, and he paid her a pension until her death.
Sources
- Arthur Schopenhauer — Wikipedia
- Giacomo Leopardi — Wikipedia
- Leo Tolstoy — Wikipedia
- The Schopenhauer Cure — Wikipedia
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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