If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing is essential for personal fulfillment and expression.
Simone De Beauvoir emphasizes the profound impact of writing on her life. For her, a day without writing is not just unproductive but leaves her feeling empty and unfulfilled, akin to the taste of ashes, suggesting that creativity is vital to her existence and well-being.
Themes
WritingCreativityExpressionFulfillmentLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of creativity, one could say, 'A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes, reminding us all to express ourselves daily.'
More from Simone De Beauvoir
All quotes →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)
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To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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