“This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.”
Conclusion
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: A conquest of this kind is never finished; the contingency remains, and, so that he may assert his will, man is even obliged to stir up in the world the outrage he does not want. But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Simone de Beauvoir 152
French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, po… 1908–1986Related quotes
“One must not fear the words anymore when one consented to the things.”
On ne doit plus craindre les mots lorsqu'on a consenti aux choses.
Alexis (1929)
“No actions are to be taken against the Germans without our consent.”
Quoted in "Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front" - Page 107 - by Constantine Pleshakov - 2005
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Disputed
Variant: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Source: Sometimes claimed to appear in her book This is My Story, but in The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes (2006), Keyes writes on p. 97 that "Bartlett's and other sources say her famous quotation can be found in This is My Story, Roosevelt's 1937 autobiography. It can't. Quotographer Rosalie Maggio scoured that book and many others by and about Roosevelt in search of this line, without success. In their own extensive searching, archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, have not been able to find the quotation in This Is My Story or any other writing by the First Lady. A discussion of some of the earliest known attributions of this quote to Roosevelt, which may be a paraphrase from an interview, can be found in this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/.
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Attributed quotes
Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), P. 186.
"From The Trial of Trials", p. 246
The Bureau of Sabotage series, The Dosadi Experiment (1977)
On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage.
Often misquoted as "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."
Frequently misattributed to Christopher Columbus.
Variant: Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Source: Les faux-monnayeurs [The Counterfeiters] (1925)
“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
Source: Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (8 July 1896) http://www.afb.org/mylife/book.asp?ch=P3Ch4, quoted in supplement to The Story of My Life