Simone De Beauvoir Quotes
1906 - 1986
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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.
Simone De Beauvoir— 1955 Tous les hommes sont mortels (All Men Are Mortal).
I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom .
Simone De Beauvoir— The Blood of Others [Le sang des autres] (1946)
The power he exercises is no more dictatorial than, for example, Roosevelt 's was.
Simone De Beauvoir— On Mao Zedong, in The Long March (1957), as quoted in "Mao and the Australian Maoists" by Keith Windschuttle, in Quadrant (October 2005)
The Communists , following Hegel , speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.
Simone De Beauvoir— On her work All Men are Mortal in Force of Circumstances (1963), p. 73
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— Les Belles Images (1966), Ch. 3
What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
Simone De Beauvoir— A Woman Destroyed [Une femme rompue] (1967)
Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone De Beauvoir— As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 548
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— Regina (All Men are Mortal (1946))
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— p. 5 (All Men are Mortal (1946))
Time is beginning to flow again.
Simone De Beauvoir— Raimon (Raymond) to Regina, p. 17
If I had amnesia, I'd be almost like other men. Perhaps I'd even be able to love you.
Simone De Beauvoir— Raimon to Regina. p. 17
They were walking side by side, but each was alone.
Simone De Beauvoir— Raimon to Regina, p. 53
You're unique like all other women.
Simone De Beauvoir— Raimon to Regina, p. 55
I was born in Italy on the 17th May 1279 in a castle in the city of Carmona.
Simone De Beauvoir— 71
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— p. 72 (All Men are Mortal (1946))
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— p. 73 (All Men are Mortal (1946))
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— p. 81 (All Men are Mortal (1946))
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. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces.
Simone De Beauvoir— Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
To will freedom and to will to disclose being are one and the same choice; hence, freedom takes a positive and constructive step which causes being to pass to existence in a movement which is constantly surpassed.
Simone De Beauvoir— Pt. III : The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Ch. 3 : Freedom and Liberation]
Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom.
Simone De Beauvoir— Pt. III : The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Ch. 3 : Freedom and Liberation
A conquest of this kind is never finished; the contingency remains, and, so that he may assert his will, man is even obliged to stir up in the world the outrage he does not want. But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.
Simone De Beauvoir— Conclusion (The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947))
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— Introduction : Woman as Other
The present enshrines the past and in the past all history has been made by men.
Simone De Beauvoir— Introduction : Woman as Other
To "catch" a husband is an art; to "hold" him is a job.
Simone De Beauvoir— Bk. 2, part 5, Ch. 1: The Married Woman, p. 468
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— Bk. 2, Pt.. 5, Ch. 2: The Mother, p. 522
Work almost always has a double aspect: it is a bondage, a wearisome drudgery; but it is also a source of interest, a steadying element, a factor that helps to integrate the worker with society. Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.
Simone De Beauvoir— Pt I, Ch. 4: Old age in present-day society, p. 263
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.
Simone De Beauvoir— Pt. 2, Ch. 1: The discovery and assumption of old age: the body's experience, p. 288
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.
Simone De Beauvoir— Pt. 2, Ch. 2: Time, activity, history, p. 412
