PhilosophyQuotes for January 24, 2000:

   "To attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the
    ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the
    task of realizing it."

   "Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox
    of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme
    end to which all action should be subordinated, but the
    exigencies of action force them to treat one another as
    instruments or obstacles, as means."

   "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."

   "The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider 
    human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach 
    man the means of winning."

   "There is no more obnoxious way to punish a man than to force
    him to perform acts which make no sense to him... This 
    mystification of useless effort is more intolerable than
    fatigue. Life imprisonment is the most horrible of 
    punishments because it preserves existence in its pure
    facticity but forbids it all legitimation."

    - Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity