The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.
Jean RacineRead
I embrace my rival, but only to strangle him.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that rivalry can be embraced, but it ultimately leads to competition or conflict.
In this quote, Jean Racine expresses a complex perspective on rivalry, indicating that while he may acknowledge and accept his rivals, the underlying intention is one of dominance or competition. The imagery of embracing a rival only to strangle them symbolizes the duality of relationships in competitive contexts, where there may be an acknowledgment of the other person, but it is accompanied by a desire to overcome or defeat them, highlighting the often contradictory nature of human interactions in the face of competition.
Themes
RivalryCompetitionDominanceConflictRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on competition in business, one might say, 'As Jean Racine said, I embrace my rival, but only to strangle him, highlighting the nature of competition.'
More from Jean Racine
All quotes βI have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.
Jean RacineRead
I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me.
Jean RacineRead
There are no secrets that time does not reveal.
Jean RacineRead
A single word often betrays a great design.
Jean RacineRead
Similar quotes
The task for sociology is to come to the help of the individual. We have to be in service of freedom. It is something we have lost sight of.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
We the Living is not a novel 'about Soviet Russia.' It is a novel about Man against the State. Its basic theme is the sanctity of human life - using the word 'sanctity' not in a mystical sense, but in the sense of 'supreme value.'
Ayn RandRead
I am alone here in my own mind. There is no map and there is no road. It is one of a kind just as yours is.
Anne SextonRead
Even faith in God is only a stage on the way. Ultimately you abandon all, for you come to something so simple that there are no words to express it.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead
Each of your breaths is a priceless jewel, since each of them is irreplaceable and once gone, can never be retrieved.
Al-GhazaliRead
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.
Terry EagletonRead