Simone de Beauvoir quotes - page 4

The point is not for women simply to take power out of men's hands, since that wouldn't change anything about the world. It's a question precisely of destroying that notion of power. (Simone de Beauvoir)
‎A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
People seem to think that if you keep your head empty you automatically fill your balls. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
...but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
She offered her mouth to him, as if enchanted. A Persian princess, a little Indian, a fox, a morning glory, a lovely wisteria--it always pleased them when you told them they looked like something, like something else. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
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. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
all success cloaks a surrender. (Simone de Beauvoir)
You have never had any confidence in him. And if he has no confidence in himself it is because he sees himself through your eyes. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
I realized that even if we went on talking till Judgment Day, I would still find the time all too short. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The body is the instrument of our hold on the world. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
I was very fond of Lagneau's phrase: "I have no comfort but in my absolute despair. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
She was not to look beyond herself for the meaning of her life. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted - all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it. (Simone de Beauvoir)
Weakness' is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
A couple who go on living together merely because that was how they began, without any other reason: was that what we were turning into? View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
It was as though some stubborn god spent their time in an immutable and absurd balancing act between life and death, prosperity and poverty. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir