If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human existence is filled with inherent ambiguity that people often attempt to disguise.
Simone De Beauvoir suggests that throughout history, humans have grappled with the complexity and confusion of their existence. While the feeling of ambiguity is universal, many philosophers have sought to obscure this truth through their ideas, often leading to a distortion of the reality of human life.
Themes
AmbiguityExistencePhilosophyTruthHuman Condition
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about existentialism, this quote can highlight the complexity of human life.
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)
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To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
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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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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
I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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