Simone Beauvoir Quotes

"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."

"To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized."

"There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future."

"Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen."

"Art is an attempt to integrate evil"

"Few books are more thrilling than certain confessions, but they must be honest, and the author must have something to confess."

"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me."

"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat"

"No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility"

"That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing."

"The faculty of imagination is both the rudder and the bridle of the senses"

"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."

"However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because of the surrounding circumstances, these talents will be still-born"

"I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom"

"What is an adult? A child blown up by age."

"One is not born a woman, one becomes one."

"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."

"The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women."

"This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate."

"Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable."