“L'extase dans la copulation. Voilà ! Voilà l'essence véritable, le cœur de toute chose, le but et l'objet de toute existence”
Issu de carnets non-publiés
La traduction en anglais : "If I am asked where the most intimate knowledge of that inner essence of the world, of that thing in itself which I have called the will to live, is to be found, or where that essence enters most clearly into our consciousness, or where it achieves the purest revelation of itself, then I must point to ecstasy in the act of copulation. That is it! That is the true essence and core of all things, the aim and purpose of all existence."
reférence : Arthur Schopenhauer, Manuscript Remains, trans. E. F. J. Payne (Oxford: Berg, 1988–90), vol. 3, 262.
Repris par Irvin D. Yalom dans "La méthode Schopenhauer" ( entête chapitre 2 )