If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.
Interpretation
The speaker grapples with the concepts of infinity and finity, expressing a desire for an endless journey in life.
This quote reflects the existential struggle of understanding the limits of existence while yearning for something boundless. Simone De Beauvoir highlights a paradox where, despite recognizing the finite nature of life, there remains an inherent desire for an infinite adventure, symbolizing the human spirit's quest for meaning and continuity in an otherwise limited reality.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire students about their future.
If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise." (p. 248)
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.
As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.
Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present β¦ Eating, sleeping, cleaning β the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.
You can't shake hands with a closed fist.
I woke up one day and thought: 'I want to write a book about the history of my body.' I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.
It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they're not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.
The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.
Suffering invites us to place our hurts in larger hands. In Christ we see God suffering β for us. And calling us to share in Godβs suffering love for a hurting world. The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected with the greater pains of Christ. Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow and therefore a larger hope.
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