If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the inflated self-perception that some men have in relation to women, suggesting a sense of superiority.
Simone De Beauvoir's quote critiques the notion of male superiority, emphasizing that even average men often perceive themselves as being much more significant or capable than women. It speaks to the wider issues of gender inequality and the social constructs that allow such beliefs to flourish, indicating a deep-rooted sexism prevalent in society.
In practice
In a discussion about gender roles, this quote can be cited to illustrate male perception.
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.
A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Unless you see yourself standing there with the shrieking crowd, full of hostility and hatred for the holy and innocent Lamb of God, you donβt really understand the nature and depth of your sin or the necessity of the cross.
He had long ago learned that society imposes insults that must be borne, comforted by the knowledge that in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful.
You are sitting on the earth and you realize that this earth deserves you and you deserve this earth. You are there - fully, personally, genuinely.
As an adolescent I was convinced that France would have to go through gigantic trials, that the interest of life consisted in one day rendering her some signal service and that I would have the occasion to do so.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.