Simone de Beauvoir

Find the best quotes, maxims and aphorisms of Simone de Beauvoir

Biography : French writer, intellectual and philosopher.
Born: 1908 - Died: 1986
Period:
20th century
Place of birth: France
France

France

Simone de Beauvoir - Quotes

Harmony between two individuals is never granted - it has to be conquered indefinitely.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Harmony between two individuals is never granted - it has to be conquered indefinitely.

Background photo by Finding Dan on Unsplash

I accept the great adventure of being me.
Simone de Beauvoir /

oneself

I accept the great adventure of being me.

Never forget that it will be enough for a political, economic or religious crisis for the rights of women to be called into question. These rights are never acquired. You will have to remain vigilant throughout your life.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Woman

The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action.
Simone de Beauvoir /

The present is not a potential past; it is the moment of choice and action.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex /

Woman

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

To will oneself free is also to will others free.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
Simone de Beauvoir /

To choose life, is to always choose the future.
Simone de Beauvoir /

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.
Simone de Beauvoir /

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.
Simone de Beauvoir /

I told myself that as long as there were books I could be sure of being happy.
Simone de Beauvoir - Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter /

Within the given world, it is up to man to make the reign of freedom prevail; to carry off this supreme victory, men and women must, among other things and above and beyond their natural differentiations, affirm their brotherhood unequivocally.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Happiness is a rarer vocation than people suppose.
Simone de Beauvoir /

happiness

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

It is desire that creates the desirable, it is the project that poses the end.
Simone de Beauvoir /

It is through gainful employment that the woman has traversed most of the distance that separated her from the male; and nothing else can guarantee her liberty in practice.
Simone de Beauvoir /

One does not exist without doing something,
Simone de Beauvoir /

There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.
Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex /

Humanity prefers to life reasons to live.
Simone de Beauvoir /

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
Simone de Beauvoir /

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.
Simone de Beauvoir

All oppression creates a state of war.
Simone de Beauvoir

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.
Simone de Beauvoir

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

Art is an attempt to integrate evil.
Simone de Beauvoir

Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.
Simone de Beauvoir

All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.
Simone de Beauvoir

Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself.
Simone de Beauvoir

The main scourge of humanity is not ignorance, because the ignorant often have excuses, but the refusal to know.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Women forge themselves the chains with which men do not wish to burden them.
Simone de Beauvoir /

Woman