If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the complexity of love and morality, suggesting that love and goodness cannot exist without their opposites.
Jean-Paul Sartre expresses a profound philosophical idea about the intertwined nature of love, hatred, good, and evil. He suggests that the desire for pure love and goodness is naive in a world where these concepts are complex and often in opposition to one another. Thus, to truly love, one must acknowledge the existence of shared adversities and the acceptance of moral ambiguity.
Themes
LoveGoodEvilPhilosophyCompassionHatred
In practice
Example use cases
To illustrate the complexities of relationships during a discussion on ethics in a philosophy class.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes →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.
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If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
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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.
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Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
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Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.
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