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Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
1908–1986 France
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French author and existentialist philosopher. She is now most famous for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe], a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism, and her long personal relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.
France Activists Authors Autobiographers Biographers Also known as: De Beauvoir, Simone, Simone De Beauvoir, One is not born a woman
Random Simone de Beauvoir quote
102 quotes
It is vain to apportion praise and blame.
The Second Sex (1949)
Sex pleasure in woman, as I have said, is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.
The Second Sex (1949)
That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.
All Men are Mortal (1946)
Man can find a justification of his own existence only in the existence of other men.
In order for men to become indignant or to admire, they must be conscious of their own freedom and the freedom of others.
If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
All Men are Mortal (1946)
To will oneself free is to effect the transition from nature to morality by establishing a genuine freedom on the original upsurge of our existence.
There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.
The Coming of Age (1970)
Revolt is not integrated into the harmonious development of the world; it does not wish to be integrated but rather to explode at the heart of the world and to break its continuity.
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.
Le deuxiéme sexe (1949)
If I had amnesia, I'd be almost like other men. Perhaps I'd even be able to love you.
All Men are Mortal (1946)
The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.
On her work All Men are Mortal in Force of Circumstances (1963)
Art [...] should not attempt to set up idols; it should reveal existence as a reason for existing.
In order for the universe of revolutionary values to arise, a subjective movement must create them in revolt and hope.
To exist is to make oneself a lack of being; it is to cast oneself into the world.
Try to stay a man amongst men … There's no other hope for you.
All Men are Mortal (1946)
At each moment freedom is confirmed through all creation.
Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.
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.
Les Belles Images (1966)
Lynching is an absolute evil; it represents the survival of an obsolete civilization, the perpetuation of a struggle of races which has to disappear; it is a fault without justification or excuse.
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