is the mark of
existence, and onward we are swept in the hurrying whirlpool of change.
This manifold restless motion is produced and kept up by the agency of
two single impulses--hunger and the sexual instinct. These are the chief
agents of the Lord of the Universe--the Will--and set in motion so
strange and varied a scene.

The Will-to-Live is at the bottom of all love-affairs. Every kind of
love springs entirely from the instinct of sex.

Love is under bonds to secure the existence of the human race in future
times. The real aim of the whole of love's romance, although the persons
concerned are unconscious of the fact, is that a particular being may
come into the world.

It is the Will-to-Live, presenting itself in the whole species, which so
forcibly and exclusively attracts two individuals of different sex
towards each other.

This yearning and this pain do not arise from the needs of an ephemeral
individual, but are, on the contrary, the sigh of the Spirit of the
Species.

Since life is essentially suffering, the propagation of the species is
an evil--the feeling of shame proves it.

In his "Metaphysics of Love," Schopenhauer says: "We see a pair of
lovers exchanging longing glances--yet why so secretly, timidly and
stealthily? Because these lovers are traitors secretly striving to
perpetuate all the misery and turmoil that otherwise would come to a
timely end."

Will, as the source of life, is the origin of all evil.

Having awakened to life from the night of unconsciousness, the
individual finds itself in an endless and boundless world, striving,
suffering, erring; and, as though passing through an ominous dream, it
hurries back to the old unconsciousness. Until then, however, its
desires are boundless, and every satisfied wish begets a new one.
So-called pleasures are only a mode of temporary relief. Pain soon
returns in the form of satiety. Life is a more or less violent
oscillation between pain and ennui. The latter, like a bird of prey,
hovers over us, ready to swoop down wherever it sees a life secure from
need.

The enjoyment of art, as the disinterested cognition devoid of Will, can
afford an interval of rest from the drudgery of Will service. But
esthetic beatitude can be obtained only by a few; it is not for the hoi
polloi. And then, art can give only a transient consolation.

Everything in life indicates that earthly happiness is destined to be
frustrated or to be recognized as an illusion