QuoteProject
The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.
Simone De Beauvoir
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes that an individual's identity and freedom are interconnected with others and the broader world.

Simone De Beauvoir suggests that a person's existence and sense of self are intrinsically linked to their relationships and interactions with the world around them. This idea highlights the importance of transcending personal boundaries and recognizing that true freedom is not only an individual pursuit but also contingent upon the liberation of others, affirming the collective nature of human existence.

Themes

IndividualFreedomRelationshipExistenceTranscendence

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about community involvement, this quote can illustrate the importance of collaboration.

More from Simone De Beauvoir

If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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)
Simone De BeauvoirRead
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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.
Simone De BeauvoirRead
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

Similar quotes

In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.
James MadisonRead
The failure to cultivate virtue, the failure to examine and analyze what I have learned, the inability to move toward righteousness after being shown the way, the inability to correct my faults-these are the causes of my grief.
ConfuciusRead
Renunciation - non-resistance - non-destructiveness - are the ideals to be attained through less and less worldliness, less and less resistance, less and less destructiveness. Keep the ideal in view and work towards it. None can live in the world without resistance, without destruction, without desire. The world has not come to that state yet when the ideal can be realised in society.
Swami VivekanandaRead
All food is the gift of the gods and has something of the miraculous, the egg no less than the truffle.
Sybille BedfordRead
If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like character which have originated in this government have been adjusted.
Abraham LincolnRead
In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young.
Emanuel SwedenborgRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.