Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

About Simone de Beauvoir:

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir is known for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism; her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins. She is also known for her open relationship with French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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 watch...

Simone de Beauvoir

In the old days the worst part of my depression used to be the astonishment it caused me, the scandalized way in which I fought against it. Nowadays, on the other hand, I accept it cheerfully enough, like an old familiar friend.

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.

Simone de Beauvoir

There were no scruples, no feelings of respect or loyal affection that would stop us from making up our minds by the pure light of reason - and of our own desires.

Simone de Beauvoir

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.

Simone de Beauvoir

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[...].

Simone de Beauvoir

One is not born a woman, but becomes one.

Simone de Beauvoir

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

Simone de Beauvoir

Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.

Simone de Beauvoir

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.

Simone de Beauvoir

Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.

Simone de Beauvoir

To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.

Simone de Beauvoir

Buying is a profound pleasure.

Simone de Beauvoir

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 writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

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...

Simone de Beauvoir

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 di...

Simone de Beauvoir

Art reveals the transitory as an absolute; & as the transitory existence is perpetuated through the centuries, art too, through the centuries, must perpetuate this never-to-be-finished revelation. Thus, the constructive activities of man tale a valid...

Simone de Beauvoir

Author Bio

  • NameSimone de Beauvoir
  • DescriptionFrench writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
  • AliasesSimone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir
  • BornJanuary 9, 1909
  • DiedApril 14, 1986
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionPolitical Philosopher; Journalist; Existentialist; Woman Of Letters; Novelist; Autobiographer; Essayist; Political Activist; Diarist; Women Letter Writer
  • WorksThe Mandarins
  • AwardsPrix Goncourt; Austrian State Prize For European Literature