If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me
Interpretation
This quote reflects the inevitability of loss and the appreciation of what remains and is gained in life.
Simone De Beauvoir's quote captures the essence of life's transient nature, acknowledging that while we may lose things we once cherished, life compensates us with new experiences and relationships. It speaks to the balance of loss and gain, reminding us to embrace change and value the gifts that life continues to offer.
In practice
In a graduation speech about embracing the future while acknowledging past losses.
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.
I play by my own rules so please think twice before you step into my life.
No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.
The trick is to age honestly and gracefully and make it look great, so that everyone looks forward to it.
Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all Iβve taken for granted.
You don't have to understand why anything that has happened nor do you even have to understand what it is that has happened. You have only to live with the remains.
Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.