If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts the active decision to become passive with the state of being passively acted upon by others.
Simone De Beauvoir highlights the distinction between a conscious choice to adopt a passive role and the experience of being subjected to passivity without agency. This statement suggests that one can choose to relinquish control or take a step back for various reasons, which is fundamentally different from having control stripped away by external forces or circumstances. In this way, the quote emphasizes individual agency and the power of choice in defining one's identity and experiences.
Themes
AgencyPassivityChoiceIdentityControl
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal empowerment, one could reference this quote to encourage individuals to take charge of their lives.
More from Simone De Beauvoir
All quotes βTwo 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)
Simone De BeauvoirRead
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.
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All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted.
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