If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
Indeed, there is nothing more arbitrary than intervening as a stranger in a destiny which is not ours.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Intervening in someone else's destiny is both arbitrary and potentially unjust.
Simone De Beauvoir highlights the complexity of interfering in the lives and destinies of others, suggesting that such actions are often based on personal whims rather than a true understanding of what is right. It compels us to reflect on the nature of free will and the ethical implications of meddling in the paths chosen by others.
Themes
DestinyInterventionFreedomPhilosophyEthics
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on free will and ethics, this quote could offer insight into the ramifications of personal choices.
More from Simone De Beauvoir
All quotes βTwo 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)
Simone De BeauvoirRead
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings. We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts.
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Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?
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He who aims at making an entire and perfect oblation of himself, in addition to his will, must offer his understanding, which is a further and the highest degree of obedience.
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