Simone de Beauvoir Quotes (57 Quotes)

To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.

There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.

Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself -- on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life . . .

We always come back to the same vicious circle - an extreme degree of material or intellectual poverty does away with the means of alleviating it.

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

Buying is a profound pleasure.

Few books are more thrilling than certain confessions, but they must be honest, and the author must have something to confess.

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.

Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen.

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.

One is not born a woman, one becomes one.

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.

If you live long enough, you'll see every victory turn into a defeat.

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

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.

However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because of the surrounding circumstances, these talents will be still-born.

All oppression creates a state of war.

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.

The writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.

Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

Live with no time out.

To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them to dare, to seek, to invent it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized.

The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them.

Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself.

Let women be provided with living strength of their own. Let them have the means to attack the world and wrest from it their own subsistence, and their dependence will be abolished -- that of man also.

One is not born a woman, but becomes one.

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.

To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.

Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.

The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength -- each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving.

Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside -- from others. We do not accept it willingly.

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.

It's frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself. It seems unfair. You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do --or don't do.

It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.

The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another.

Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.

Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.

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.

If you haven't been happy very young, you can still be happy later on, but it's much harder. You need more luck.

This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.

What is an adult? A child blown up by age.

If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through 'the eternal feminine,' and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question what is a woman.

Art is an attempt to integrate evil.