If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the connection between the concepts of time and death, emphasizing the inevitability and fear of decay.
Simone De Beauvoir examines the profound relationship between time and death, expressing the anxiety that arises from the awareness of our mortality. She highlights how the passage of time is not just a measure of our existence but is also intertwined with the fear of decay and the ultimate end that death represents. This contemplation invites a deeper reflection on how we live our lives, knowing that each moment brings us closer to our inevitable fate.
Themes
TimeDeathDecayMortalityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about life's impermanence during a philosophy lecture.
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)
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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.
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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