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.
Women are dominating the charts, and women are doing it for themselves. We're kicking butt and taking no prisoners.
Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.
The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.
I don't have time for easy. Tennis is just hard.
And when I was saying I want to become number one of the world and I was 7, 8 years old, most of the people were laughing to me. Because you know, it seemed like I have one percent chances to do that. And I've done it.
Once you've found your own voice, the choice to expand your influence, to increase your contribution, is the choice to inspire others to find their voice.
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