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

[ ] Beauvoir herself was as devout an atheist as she had once been a Catholic, and she dismisses religions — even when they worship a goddess — as the inventions of men to perpetuate their dominion.

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

Un des problèmes essentiels qui se posent à propos de la femme, c'est la conciliation de son rôle reproducteur et de son travail producteur.

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

Si la mujer es prosaica, casera, bajamente utilitaria, se debe a que le imponen que consagre su existencia a preparar alimentos y limpiar deyecciones. No será de ahí de donde podrá extraer el sentido de la grandeza.

Simone de Beauvoir

The proletariat could plan to massacre the whole ruling class; a fanatic Jew or black could dream of seizing the secret of the atomic bomb and turning all of humanity entirely Jewish or entirely black: but a woman could not even dream of exterminatin...

Simone de Beauvoir

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

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

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

É completamente estúpido escrever cartas de amor, não pode ser transcrito através de uma simples carta, mas o que fazer quando este horrível oceano nos separa do homem que amamos?

Simone de Beauvoir

Men’s economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows a...

Simone de Beauvoir

There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

Simone de Beauvoir

To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, ea...

Simone de Beauvoir

Vengeance is pointless, but certain men did not have a place in the world we sought to construct

Simone de Beauvoir

Vengeance is pointless, but certain men do not have a place in the world we sought to construct

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.

Simone de Beauvoir

The adventure is which I have shared so passionately is not over--this adventure with its doubt, failure, the dreariness of no progress, then a glimpse of light, a hope, a hypothesis confirmed; and then after weeks and months of anxious perseverance,...

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

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

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