To possess at the outset so much that we can live comfortably, even if only for our own person and without a family, and can live really independently, that is, without working, is a priceless advantage. For it means exemption and immunity from the poverty and trouble attaching to the life of man, and thus emancipation from universal drudgery, the natural lot of earthly mortals. Only under this favour and patronage of fate is a man born truly free; for only so is he really sui juris, master of his own time and powers, and is able to say every morning ‘The day is mine’. And for the very same reason, the difference between the man with a thousand a year and one with a hundred is infinitely less than that between the former and the man who has nothing. But inherited wealth attains its highest value when it has comes to the man who is endowed with mental powers of a high order and who pursues activities that are hardly compatible with earning money. For he is then doubly endowed by fate and can now live for his genius.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "To possess at the outset so much that we can live comfortably, even if only for our own person and without a family, and can live really independently, that is, without working, is a priceless advantage. For it means exemption and immunity from the poverty and trouble attaching to the life of man, and thus emancipation from universal drudgery, the natural lot of earthly mortals. Only under this favour and patronage of fate is a man born truly free; for only so is he really sui juris, master of his own time and powers, and is able to say every morning ‘The day is mine’. And for the very same reason, the difference between the man with a thousand a year and one with a hundred is infinitely less than that between the former and the man who has nothing. But inherited wealth attains its highest value when it has comes to the man who is endowed with mental powers of a high order and who pursues activities that are hardly compatible with earning money. For he is then doubly endowed by fate and can now live for his genius." in the context of "Arthur Schopenhauer, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life,” Parerga und Paralipomena, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 350" to mean that wisdom is timeless.