After his father died, Schopenhauer lived with his mother for some time, and it was a contentious relationship, to say the least. She thought his philosophy was incomprehensible and would never amount to anything, and he thought her lifestyle and the novels she wrote were frivolous. However, due to her he was able to mingle with important literary figures, such as Goethe, who frequented her salon. In addition, she was a quite popular novelist at the time, and her connections at the publisher helped him publish his first major work, The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. However, they eventually became more and more hostile, until Schopenhauer moved out at the age of 30, and they broke off contact.

The text about love is mostly quotes from his work Metaphysics of the Love, in which he mostly equates love to a kind of reproductive instinct, and ultimately judges reproduction itself to be a negative thing, as it prolongs the suffering of the human race. The text about Hegel is also mostly quotes. He wasn't the most fond of Hegel, especially after he scheduled his lecture to happen at the same time as Hegel's lectures, and almost no one showed up to his.

He was quite fond of poodles.