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Simone de Beauvoir
67 quotes
“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Blood of Others [Le sang des autres] (1946)
“His personal prestige, his qualities, his competence assure him a preponderant role however; since 1927 he has been above all the unchallenged specialist on peasant question. But the power he exercises is no more dictatorial than, for example, Roosevelt's was. New China's Constitution renders impossible the concentration of authority in one man's hands; the country is governed by a team whose members have been united through a long common struggle and by a close friendship.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her work All Men are Mortal in Force of Circumstances (1963), p. 73
“Il n'y a pas de mort naturelle: rien de ce qui arrive à l'homme n'est jamais naturel puisque sa présence met le monde en question. Tous les hommes sont mortels: mais pour chaque homme sa mort est un accident et, même s'il la connaît et y consent, une violence indue.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Une Mort Très Douce (1964) translated by Patrick O'Brian as A Very Easy Death (1965) last words
“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.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Belles Images (1966), Ch. 3
“What is an adult? A child puffed with age.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Woman Destroyed [La Femme rompue] (1967)
“But presently I began to bubble with happiness. No, my daughters' absence did not sadden me at all—quite the reverse. I could drive as fast or as slowly as I liked, go where I liked, stop when the whim took me. I made up my mind to spend the week wandering about. I get up as soon as it is light. The car is waiting for me in the street or in the courtyard like a faithful animal; it is wet with dew; I wipe its eyes, and full of delight I tear away through the growing sunlight.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Woman Destroyed [La Femme rompue] (1967)
“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All Said and Done (1972), p. 16
“No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Dialogue with Simone de Beauvoir,” in Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement, (New York: Random House, 1976), p. 397.
“We were two of a kind, and our relationship would endure as long as we did: but it could not make up entirely for the fleeting riches to be had from encounters with different people.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, as quoted in "Did Simone de Beauvoir's open 'marriage' make her happy?" by Lisa Appignanesi, in The Guardian (9 June 2005) and her book Simone de Beauvoir (2005), p. 36, ISBN 1…
“[T]he Sahara was a spectacle as alive as the sea. The tints of the dunes changed according to the time of day and the angle of the light: golden as apricots from far off, when we drove close to them they turned to freshly made butter; behind us they grew pink; from sand to rock, the materials of which the desert was made varied as much as its tints.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Force of Circumstance (1965), p. 206.
“Insects were scurrying about in the shade cast by the grass, and the lawn was a huge monotonous forest of thousands of little green blades, all equal, all alike, hiding the world from each other. Anguished, she thought, "I don't want to be just another blade of grass.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She was beautiful, with a beauty so severe and so solitary that at first it was startling. "Ah! If only there were two of me," she thought, "one doing the talking and one listening, one living and one watching, how I would love myself. I'd envy no one.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time is beginning to flow again.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I had amnesia, I'd be almost like other men. Perhaps I'd even be able to love you.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You made me come to Paris. You pestered me to start living again. Well, now it's up to you to make my life livable. You mustn't let three whole days go by without coming to see me. … You wanted me to take notice of you. Now nothing else matters to me. I know you're alive and I feel emptiness inside me when you're away.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm never afraid. But in my case it's nothing to be proud of.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He walks in the street, a picture of modesty in his felt hat and his gabardine suit, and all the while he's thinking, "I'm immortal." The world is his, time is his, and I'm nothing but an insect.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had not applauded, he had remained seated, but he had looked at her steadily. From the depths of eternity he had looked at her and Rosalind became immortal. If I could believe him, she thought, if only I could believe him!”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dare to believe me. Dare!”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They were walking side by side, but each was alone.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're unique like all other women.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was born in Italy on the 17th May 1279 in a castle in the city of Carmona.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the children of Carmona were divided into two camps, and below the ramparts, among the brushwood and rocks, we battled with stones shouting "Long live the duke!" and others, "Down with the tyrant!" We fought viciously, but I was never satisfied with this game — the fallen enemy rose again, the dead came back to life. The day after a battle, victors and vanquished both found themselves unharmed.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the first time in my life, I took part in a real battle between men. The dead did not come to life again, the vanquished fled in disorder; every thrust of my lance helped save Carmona. That day, I would have died with a smile on my lips, certain of having contributed to a triumphant future for my city.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was as though some stubborn god spent their time in an immutable and absurd balancing act between life and death, prosperity and poverty.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What did today's sacrifices matter: the Universe lay ahead in the future. What did burnings at the stake and massacres matter? The Universe was somewhere else, always somewhere else! And it isn't anywhere: there are only men, men eternally divided.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What has value in their eyes is never what is done for them; it's what they do for themselves.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is impossible to do anything for anyone.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Were we really more advanced than the alchemists of Carmona? We had brought to light certain facts that they were not aware of, we had organised them into the right order; but had we advanced even a step nearer to the mysterious heart of the universe?”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[C]'est la vraie générosité ; vous donnez tout et rien ne semble jamais vous coûter.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After wars peace, after peace, another war. Every day men are born and others die.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Try to stay a man amongst men … There's no other hope for you.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In horror, in terror, she accepted the metamorphosis — gnat, foam, ant, until death. And it's only the beginning, she thought. She stood motionless, as if it were possible to play tricks with time, possible to stop it from following its course. But her hands stiffened against her quivering lips. When the bells began to sound the hour she let out the first scream.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All agree in recognising the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior. But the significance of the verb to be must be rightly understood here; it is in bad faith to give it a static value when it really has the dynamic Hegelian sense of "to have become." Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should that state of affairs continue? Many men hope that it will continue; not all have given up the battle.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The present enshrines the past—and in the past all history has been made by men.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From primitive times to our own, intercourse has always been considered a "service" for which the male thanks the woman by giving her presents or assuring her maintenance; but to serve is to give oneself a master; there is no reciprocity in this relation.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 2, Pt.. 4, Ch. 3: Sexual Initiation. P. 418 (1974 Vintage edition)
“To be gazed at is one danger; to be manhandled is another. Women as a rule are unfamiliar with violence, they have not been through the tussles of childhood and youth as have men; and now the girl is laid hold of, swept away in a bodily struggle in which the man is the stronger. She is no longer free to dream, to delay, to maneuver: she is in his power, at his disposal.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 3: Sexual initiation. p. 427 (1974 Vintage edition)
“Woman is an existent who is called upon to make herself object; as subject she has an aggressive element in her sensuality which is not satisfied on the male body: hence the conflicts that her eroticism must somehow overcome.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 4: The Lesbian. P. 445 (1974 Vintage edition)
“To "catch" a husband is an art; to "hold" him is a job.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: one must have the gift.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source