Epictetus is the stern but wise grandfather meting out age-old wisdom: accept your limitations and always look on the bright side.

One of the clearest analyses of the origins of human conflict -- hurt feelings mistakenly translated into hurtful arguments. Classic. Great use of simple diagrams and cartoons.

Along with "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" and "The Myth of Freedom," lessons in diamond crazy Tibetan Buddhist wisdom from the funkiest of lamas, the one and only Trungpa.

An excellent and remarkably diverse selection of pithy and pungent aphorisms, little nuggets of wisdom.

Classic introduction to the importance of emotional maturity in achieving life goals.

Teaches us how to resist mental manipulation and how to refuse to give in to our own mechanistic emotional reflexes.

Spirituality explained for those whose education may have been marred by too much exposure to religion. A good introduction to Alan Watt's direct and humorous approach to spiritual growth. Eastern philosophy boiled down to its essence -- a quick and amusing read.

Of the two main kinds of brain, this is the better one! In order to make sense of male-female relations one has to understand our cognitive differences, which are profound.

Elegantly demonstrates that most philosophical problems are based on an illogical attempt to make language achieve things it inherently cannot. A good introduction to Wittgenstein's early thinking. Clear and concise, a quick read.

Nietzsche was like a hurricane on the shoddy construction of all previous philosophy -- he blew away whatever wasn't tightly-battened down.

The father of science taught Western Civilization how to think. The ignorant laugh at his crude errors; the knowledgeable are dumbstruck by the audacity of his enterprise.

What good is your wisdom if you eat badly? You've got to eat, so you might as well eat well, even if you don't have time or cooking skill. Pepin shows you how (although Tivo'ing his TV show works also). The truly wise man or woman gets his or her partner interested in Pepin, buys the book, then goes out and gets the ingredients. It's a worthwhile investment.

Evokes a great sense of life as a mysterious and mandatory adventure of spiritual initiation. Look at it as a novelistic parable of the spiritual journey and you won't have to worry about whether Castaneda was making it up or not.

George Carlin was a funnier version of Nietzsche -- the ultimate acerbic social commentator, working in a time when there was a lot to shoot at.

When a great poet like Yeats works on translating a spiritual masterpiece like the Upanishads, the result can be exhilarating, particularly the awesome first selection, the Isha Upanishad, which gets my vote for the most beautiful prayer ever translated into English.

Oscar Wilde, the wittiest man of his generation, was also a Greek scholar, who put his classical learning to use, particularly in his reading of the Gospels, after his infamous humiliation and incarceration.

You will never understand politics until you learn to confront your own tendencies toward bias and irrationality. This book shows you how.

One of the most beautiful spiritual memoirs yet written, with fantastic excerpts from Dogen, the first and greatest of Japanese zen masters.

All human wisdom must be acquired within a human body -- but if the body is sick, of what use is the wisdom? Modern science reveals the cognitive benefits of exercise, confirming the Romans -- "mens sana in corpore sano".

Chopra can be cheesy, but he does boil down Hinduism with his own very clear and modern adaptation. Except for Rishi, his first book, this is Chopra's best book.