In this short but comprehensive "guide to life," French writer and academic André Maurois (1885-1967) gives advice to a young person on the attitude they should have towards important issues such as human happiness, entertainment, money, marriage, the culture of abundance, envy, the multiplicity of the self, and contradictory human behavior...

Addressing issues that arise at every step of a person's journey, Maurois, in this 1966 text (written one year before his death), composes a true ethics of life and, as a distillation of knowledge and lived experience, imparts to his readers timeless, always relevant messages, beginning with four basic rules:
You must not live only for yourself, you must act, you must believe in the power of will, you must be reliable and never disappoint others.