If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
It must be said in addition that the men with the most scrupulous respect for embryonic life are also those who are most zealous when it comes to condemning adults to death in war.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the contradiction in valuing life at different stages, highlighting hypocrisy in views on life and death.
Simone De Beauvoir points out the inconsistency in societal attitudes toward life, contrasting the respect given to embryonic life with the disregard for adult life in the context of war. This reflects a deeper philosophical examination of how value is assigned to life based on context and circumstance, suggesting a need for a more cohesive ethic regarding the sanctity of life.
In practice
In a debate about pro-life policies, this quote can emphasize the need for consistent ethical standards.
If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
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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.
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The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.
In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.
Nothing is forgotten in the processes of idealization. Reveries of idealization develop, not by letting oneself be taken in by memories, but by constantly dreaming the values of a being whom one would love. And that is the way a great dreamer dreams his double. His magnified double sustains him.
This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.
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