If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of loving freely, regardless of gender, without societal constraints.
Simone De Beauvoir's quote addresses the limitations imposed by societal norms regarding love and sexuality. She argues that being bound to a specific orientation, be it heterosexuality or homosexuality, restricts the human capacity for love. The ideal, she suggests, is to be open to love in all its forms, allowing individuals to connect with others based on humanity rather than labels or societal obligations.
Themes
LoveHomosexualityHeterosexualityFreedomHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on LGBTQ+ rights, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of love beyond gender.
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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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