Simone De Beauvoir Quotes

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

I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.

Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.

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

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!

Being on the fringes of the world is not the best place for someone who intends to re-create it: here again, to go beyond the given, one must be deeply rooted in it. Personal accomplishments are almost impossible in human categories collectively kept in an inferior situation.

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.

Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise." (p. 248)

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.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Be loved, be admired, be necessary; be somebody.

What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.

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

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

The misfortune is that although everyone must come to [death], each experiences the adventure in solitude. We never left Maman during those last days... and yet we were profoundly separated from her.

On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].

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

In those days we saw every sort of object as though it were one of those tiny handkerchiefs from which a conjuror can produce silk scarfs, streamers, flags, and yards of ribbon. A cup of coffee became a kaleidoscope in which we could spend ages watching the mutable reflections of ceiling or chandelier.

L'ideologie chrétienne n'a pas peu contribué à l'oppression de la femme.