If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time
Interpretation
The quote highlights the unique way in which the speaker communicates, suggesting that each carefully crafted sentence carries weight and significance.
In this quote, Simone De Beauvoir describes the experience of receiving someone's thoughts as if they were gifts, emphasizing the care and deliberation with which they are expressed. The hesitance in forming sentences suggests a deep introspection, while the forcefulness of their delivery indicates a powerful emotional connection, making the act of communication feel intimate and valued.
In practice
In a speech about the power of communication in relationships, one might quote this to highlight thoughtful dialogue.
If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Two 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)
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
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.
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.
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.
Every tragedy of the human experience can be attributed to one human decision - the decision to withdraw from each other.
He was one of those quite rare adults who communicate with small children fairly well and who love them all impartially--not in a sugary way but in a businesslike fashion that may sometimes entail a hug, in the same way that closing a big business deal may call for a handshake.
The moment someone asks you to do something you don't have the time or inclination to do is fraught with vulnerability.
Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.
Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves!
A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.
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