If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the complexity of love and morality, suggesting that love and goodness cannot exist without their opposites.
Jean-Paul Sartre expresses a profound philosophical idea about the intertwined nature of love, hatred, good, and evil. He suggests that the desire for pure love and goodness is naive in a world where these concepts are complex and often in opposition to one another. Thus, to truly love, one must acknowledge the existence of shared adversities and the acceptance of moral ambiguity.
Themes
LoveGoodEvilPhilosophyCompassionHatred
In practice
Example use cases
To illustrate the complexities of relationships during a discussion on ethics in a philosophy class.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes →All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Similar quotes
The one place gods inarguably exist is in the human mind.
Alan MooreRead
We do not wish to enter Heaven until our work is done, for it would make us uneasy if there were one single soul left to be saved by our means.
Charles SpurgeonRead
I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mohammedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family, and would accept of truth by whomsoever offered -- that truth which we can all find, if we will but seek in things, not in words; in nature, not in human imagination; in our own hearts, not in temples made with hands.
Frances WrightRead
Being harmless means being so strong, so empowered, that the idea of showing power through harm is not even a part of your consciousness.
Gary ZukavRead
I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.
Desmond TutuRead
The idea of a cure for autism is itself controversial. Some people with autism say they don't want to be cured, because autism gives them a different way of looking at the world.
Simon Baron-CohenRead