If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that an individual's identity and freedom are interconnected with others and the broader world.
Simone De Beauvoir suggests that a person's existence and sense of self are intrinsically linked to their relationships and interactions with the world around them. This idea highlights the importance of transcending personal boundaries and recognizing that true freedom is not only an individual pursuit but also contingent upon the liberation of others, affirming the collective nature of human existence.
Themes
IndividualFreedomRelationshipExistenceTranscendence
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about community involvement, this quote can illustrate the importance of collaboration.
More from Simone De Beauvoir
All quotes →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)
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 … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – 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
Similar quotes
America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus' famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable, has lost its explanatory value and is becoming an intellectual and moral burden to our thought. It no longer convinces or comforts, and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief.
Julian HuxleyRead
For those whose exclusive norm of constitutional judging is merely fair reading of language applied to facts objectively viewed, 'Brown' must either be flat-out wrong or a very mystifying decision.
David SouterRead
Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. What feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.
Stephen ColbertRead
We have become dangerously comfortable- believers ooze with wealth and let their addictions to comfort and security numb the radical urgency of the gospel.
Francis ChanRead
It's the tide. It's the dismal tide. It's not the one thing.
Cormac MccarthyRead