If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a resistance to external expectations and a desire for autonomy in one's actions.
Jean-Paul Sartre's quote reflects the existentialist idea that individuals should not be burdened by the expectations and desires of others. Instead, he suggests that the pressure to conform to others' anticipations often leads him to act in rebellion against those expectations. This highlights a fundamental struggle for personal freedom and authenticity in the face of societal norms and pressures.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing existentialism, this quote can illustrate the importance of personal choice.
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
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.
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
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.
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.
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
Oh, I may be devout, but I am human all the same.
Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.
I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.
Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.
In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no convictions at all.
Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church.
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