If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized
Interpretation
Pushing beyond your perceived limits reveals new talents and abilities.
Simone De Beauvoir emphasizes that true ability is not merely about what we think we can do, but rather about transcending those limits. By daring to challenge ourselves, seeking new experiences, and engaging in the act of invention, we uncover hidden talents that contribute to our personal and professional growth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth and development.
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 … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – 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.
Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.
You've got to keep yourself in prime physical condition, because fatigue makes cowards of us all.
And if after all this you eventually fail; don't take it personal. Don't be ashamed to start all over again.
The biggest temptation I believe is to feel comfortable, to feel like you've worked through all of that here on Earth, and are satisfied with this life.
You don't just become number one because you sing like everybody else. There is something different you bring to the table. Make sure you are constantly getting into the newest technologies. Learn the history of what you do, and always respect the ones who came before you.
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