If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
The knight departing for new adventures offends his lady, yet she has nothing but contempt for him if he remains at her feet.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that pursuing one's own path can sometimes hurt others, but stagnation can be equally disdainful.
Simone De Beauvoir explores the conflict between individual aspirations and relational expectations. The knight's journey for new adventures symbolizes personal growth and exploration, which may disappoint those who wish for him to stay, while remaining passive at the feet of his lady earns him her contempt. This duality highlights the challenges of balancing personal ambitions with the feelings of loved ones, suggesting that both independence and dependence have their consequences.
Themes
AdventureIndependenceRelationshipsAmbitionGrowth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about pursuing personal dreams even at the cost of relationships.
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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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