If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
She offered her mouth to him, as if enchanted. A Persian princess, a little Indian, a fox, a morning glory, a lovely wisteria--it always pleased them when you told them they looked like something, like something else.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a sense of enchantment in love, highlighting the beauty of comparing a lover to enchanting elements of nature and culture.
Simone De Beauvoir's quote evokes a sense of romantic allure and the power of comparison in conveying affection. By likening a beloved to various beautiful entities—from nature to cultural symbols—she captures how love can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, emphasizing the deep admiration and enchantment that often accompanies romantic relationships. Such comparisons serve not only to elevate the individual in question but also to enrich the emotional experience of love itself.
Themes
LoveEnchantmentBeautyComparisonAffection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a romantic speech during a wedding.
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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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 … 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
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