If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
She suffers as a miser. She must be miserly with her pleasures, as well. I wonder if sometimes she doesn't wish she were free of this monotonous sorrow, of these mutterings which start as soon as she stops singing, if she doesn't wish to suffer once and for all, to drown herself in despair. In any case, it would be impossible for her: she is bound.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the burdens of emotional suffering and the struggle for liberation from monotony.
In this poignant quote, Sartre explores the inner turmoil of a woman weighed down by her sorrow and the constraints it imposes on her ability to experience joy. He suggests that while she may yearn for freedom from her pain, the shackles of her emotional state keep her trapped in a cycle of sadness, highlighting the incessant struggle between desire for liberation and the reality of confinement within one's own feelings.
Themes
SufferingFreedomEmotionsMonotonyDespair
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about mental health struggles at a seminar.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes →All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.
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If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
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A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.
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I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
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Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
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