Arthur Schopenhauer40s (age) is a cut off point. The first 40 years give life text, the next thirty supply the commentary on it.
Acquisition is unsatisfying. To gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is.
Aesthetic perception is a special state of perceptual consciousness where we lose ourselves in the object, forget about our individuality, and become the clear mirror of the platonic idea we perceive.
Aesthetic perception is the act of perceiving an individuated object not as an object, but as a platonic universal, and thus to raise the seer into a pure will-less, painless, and timeless subject of knowledge.
Agency is relative. A man can surely do what he wills to do, but cannot determine what he wills.
The Animal is the present incarnate. This is why it lacks both anxiety and hope. Its consciousness is restricted to what is clearly evident.
The Art of not reading is not taking a book into one's hand merely because it is interesting the great public at the time.
The Artist is tasked with communicating the universalistic vision to those who lack the power to see through, and to rise above, the ordinary world of spatio-temporal objects. Why is this necessary' Because spatio-temporal existence is an existence grounded in inherently violent opposition).
Ascetic consciousness is an overcoming of the quest for knowledge. As such, it is a symbolic return to adam and eve to paradise.
Ascetic consciousness is located neither in the platonic realm, nor in the everyday realm, but at the very level of the universal subject-object distinction, at a level of universality comparable to that of will as thing-in-itself.
Ascetic consciousness is not only where physical desires are overcome, but where humanly-inherent epistemological dispositions are overcome as well.
Asceticism is productive of a mystical state of consciousness whose character is inscrutable and looks like nothing at all from the standpoint of ordinary, day-to-day, individuated and objectifying consciousness.
Asceticism is the supreme struggle to transcend human nature, practical knowledge, and the will-to-live.
Asceticism is the vanishing of the physical world itself, and the ushing in of an ocean-like calmness, tranquillity, confidence and serenity on the one hand and ecstasy, rapture, illumination, and union with God on the other.
The Author is either falling star (having a momentary effect), a planet (having a much longer duration) or a fixed star (unchangeable, possessing his own light, and working for all time).
