[S]ex endows the individual with a dumb and
powerful instinct, which carries his body and
soul continually towards another; makes it one
of the dearest employments of his life to select
and pursue a companion, and joins to
possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the
fiercest rage, and to solitude an eternal
melancholy. What more could be needed to
suffuse the world with the deepest meaning
and beauty?

GEORGE SANTAYANA,
The Sense of Beauty (1896)¹

Death is the great reprimand which the will to
live, or more especially the egoism which is
essential to this, receives through the course of
nature; and it may be conceived of as a
punishment for our existence. It is the painful
loosening of the knot which the act of
generation had tied …

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER,
The World as Will and Idea, Supplements²