Simone de Beauvoir quotes - page 2

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. (Simone de Beauvoir)
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
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
There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.
Simone de Beauvoir
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.
Simone de Beauvoir
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
One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
Simone de Beauvoir
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.
Simone de Beauvoir
A man attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.
Simone de Beauvoir
To lose confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in oneself.
Simone de Beauvoir
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself. (Simone de Beauvoir)
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
Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.
Simone de Beauvoir
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
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
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
The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.
Simone de Beauvoir
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
Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.
Simone de Beauvoir
It is impossible to do anything for anyone.
Simone de Beauvoir
It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias. (Simone de Beauvoir)
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
If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion.
Simone de Beauvoir
Women's mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.
Simone de Beauvoir
Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me.
Simone de Beauvoir