Simone De Beauvoir Quotes

I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way.

Given masculine norms, it is clear that women are more likely to be considered crazy - I'm not saying to be crazy.

If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion

Because we are separated everything separates us, even our efforts to join each other.

Weakness' is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes.

Si l'on vit assez longtemps, on voit que toute victoire se change un jour en de faite. If you live long enough, you'll find that every victory turns into a defeat.

To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.

Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.

Words have to murder reality before they can hold it captive.

Writing ... is a profession that can only be learned by writing.

Literature is born when something in life goes slightly adrift.

Each person has his or her own very particular history and after all, the unconscious is the most secret part of ourselves.

If women really did have complete equality with men, society would be completely overturned.

I never thought of myself as being in the avant-garde. I said what I had to say, as I was able to say it.

immortality is a terrible curse.

People seem to think that if you keep your head empty you automatically fill your balls.

When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior.

The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.

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.

History is a great cemetery: men, deeds, ideas are always dying as soon as they are born.

Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.

‎A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.

It's not a very big step from contentment to complacency.

The role of a retired person is no longer to possess one.

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

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

it is true that nothing is gained without something being lost: everyone knows that in fulfilling oneself one necessarily sacrifices some possibilities.

Harmony between two individuals is never granted-it has to be conquered indefinitely.

A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.

I could see no reason for being sad. It´s just that it makes me unhappy not to feel happy.

Live with no time-out.

One day I'll be old, dead, forgotten. And at this very moment, while I'm sitting here thinking these things, a man in a dingy hotel room is thinking, "I will always be here."

All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.

When Goya was 80 he drew an ancient man propped on two sticks, with a great mass of white hair and beard all over his face, and the inscription, "I am still learning."

There is a kind of universality in the human condition, masculine or feminine. That's one thing I continue to believe.

I think that Freud understood absolutely nothing about women - as he himself said.

There are so many problems. Women can go to work on these as well without giving up their feminism.

Man is a talking animal and he will always let himself be swayed by the power of the word. Machines won't change human nature.

On ne na|"t pas femme: on le devient. One is not born a woman: one becomes a woman.

I like everyone who tries to show that madness is, in large part, conditioned by society and particularly by the family, and therefore, strongly affects women.

He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people; what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!

If you are truly on the left, if you reject ideas of power and hierarchy, what you want is equality. Otherwise, it won't work at all.

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.

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.

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

For years I thought my work still lay ahead, and now I find it is behind me: there was no moment when it took place.

For me, the problem of time is linked up with that of death, with the thought that we inevitably draw closer and closer to it, with the horror of decay.

In order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society.

Women aren't more easily swayed by fascism than men, but I believe that their situation makes them in effect more slavish than men.

The knight departing for new adventures offends his lady, yet she has nothing but contempt for him if he remains at her feet.