Simone De Beauvoir Quotes: 152 Quotes on Autonomy, Love, Gender Constructs, and Questioning the World

Simone de Beauvoir: 152 quotes35 likes

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

“We were two of a kind, and our relationship would endure as long as we did: but it could not make up entirely for the fleeting riches to be had from encounters with different people.”

Simone de Beauvoir

On her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, as quoted in "Did Simone de Beauvoir's open 'marriage' make her happy?" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/10/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety by Lisa Appignanesi, in The Guardian (9 June 2005) and her book Simone de Beauvoir (2005), p. 36, ISBN 1904950094 General sources

“When an individual (or a group of individuals) is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he is inferior. But the significance of the verb to be must be rightly understood here; it is in bad faith to give it a static value when it really has the dynamic Hegelian sense of "to have become." Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should that state of affairs continue?
Many men hope that it will continue; not all have given up the battle.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Introduction : Woman as Other
The Second Sex (1949)

“I'm never afraid. But in my case it's nothing to be proud of.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina. p. 23
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“When Sartre and I met not only did our backgrounds fuse, but also our solidity, our individual conviction that we were what we were made to be. In that framework we could not become rivals. Then, as the relationship between Sartre and me grew, I became convinced that I was irreplaceable in his life, and he in mine. In other words, we were totally secure in the knowledge that our relationship was also totally solid, again preordained, though, of course, we would have laughed at that word then. When you have such security it's easy not to be jealous. But had I thought that another woman played the same role as I did in Sartre's life, of course, I would have been jealous.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Interview by John Gerassi in Society (January-February 1976) http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/1976/interview.htm General sources

“They were walking side by side, but each was alone.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina, p. 53
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“It's frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself… It seems unfair. You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do — or don't do.”

Simone de Beauvoir book Les Belles Images

Les Belles Images (1966), Ch. 3
General sources

“Even the children of Carmona were divided into two camps, and below the ramparts, among the brushwood and rocks, we battled with stones shouting "Long live the duke!" and others, "Down with the tyrant!" We fought viciously, but I was never satisfied with this game — the fallen enemy rose again, the dead came back to life. The day after a battle, victors and vanquished both found themselves unharmed.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 72

“Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Conclusion, p. 543
The Coming of Age (1970)

“If I had amnesia, I'd be almost like other men. Perhaps I'd even be able to love you.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina. p. 17
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“I was born in Italy on the 17th May 1279 in a castle in the city of Carmona.”

Simone de Beauvoir

71
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“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

Conclusion, p. 539
The Coming of Age (1970)

“You made me come to Paris. You pestered me to start living again. Well, now it's up to you to make my life livable. You mustn't let three whole days go by without coming to see me. … You wanted me to take notice of you. Now nothing else matters to me. I know you're alive and I feel emptiness inside me when you're away.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina. p. 20
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“All agree in recognising the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Introduction : Woman as Other http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/introduction.htm The Second Sex (1949)

“Were we really more advanced than the alchemists of Carmona? We had brought to light certain facts that they were not aware of, we had organised them into the right order; but had we advanced even a step nearer to the mysterious heart of the universe?”

Simone de Beauvoir

All Men are Mortal (1946)

“It is impossible to do anything for anyone.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 317

“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

As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, Steve Deger and Leslie Ann Gibson, p. 525
Attributed

“She was beautiful, with a beauty so severe and so solitary that at first it was startling. "Ah! If only there were two of me," she thought, "one doing the talking and one listening, one living and one watching, how I would love myself. I'd envy no one."”

Simone de Beauvoir

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 5

“He had not applauded, he had remained seated, but he had looked at her steadily. From the depths of eternity he had looked at her and Rosalind became immortal. If I could believe him, she thought, if only I could believe him!”

Simone de Beauvoir

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), P. 30

“For the first time in my life, I took part in a real battle between men. The dead did not come to life again, the vanquished fled in disorder; every thrust of my lance helped save Carmona. That day, I would have died with a smile on my lips, certain of having contributed to a triumphant future for my city.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 73

“The present enshrines the past—and in the past all history has been made by men.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Introduction : Woman as Other http://books.google.com/books?id=kUW0AAAAIAAJ&q=%22The+present+enshrines+the+past+and+in+the+past+all+history+has+been+made+by+men%22&pg=PA122#v=onepage The Second Sex (1949)

“It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Introduction : Woman as Other http://books.google.com/books?id=kUW0AAAAIAAJ&q=%22It+is+doubtless+impossible+to+approach+any+human+problems+with+a+mind+free+from+bias%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage The Second Sex (1949)

“Dare to believe me. Dare!”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina. p. 31
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“You're unique like all other women.”

Simone de Beauvoir

Raimon to Regina, p. 55
All Men are Mortal (1946)

“To will freedom and to will to disclose being are one and the same choice; hence, freedom takes a positive and constructive step which causes being to pass to existence in a movement which is constantly surpassed.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Ethics of Ambiguity

Pt. III : The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Ch. 3 : Freedom and Liberation]
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)

“The humanity of tomorrow will be living in its flesh and in its conscious liberty; that time will be its present and it will in turn prefer it. New relations of flesh and sentiment of which we have no conception will arise between the sexes; already, indeed, there have appeared between men and women friendships, rivalries, complicities, comradeships — chaste or sensual — which past centuries could not have conceived.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

The Second Sex (1949)

“The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never the given that confers superiorities: "virtue", as the ancients called it, is defined at the level of "that which depends on us."”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

In both sexes is played out the same drama of the flesh and the spirit, of finitude and transcendence; both are gnawed away by time and laid in wait for by death, they have the same essential need for one another; and they can gain from their liberty the same glory. If they were to taste it, they would no longer be tempted to dispute fallacious privileges, and fraternity between them could then come into existence.
The Second Sex (1949)

“We must not believe, certainly, that a change in woman’s economic condition alone is enough to transform her, though this factor has been and remains the basic factor in her evolution; but until it has brought about the moral, social, cultural, and other consequences that it promises and requires, the new woman cannot appear.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

The Second Sex (1949)

“Cooking is revelation and creation; and a woman can find special satisfaction in a successful cake or a flaky pastry, for not every one can do it: one must have the gift.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, part 5, Ch. 1: The Married Woman, p. 506
The Second Sex (1949)

“Woman is an existent who is called upon to make herself object; as subject she has an aggressive element in her sensuality which is not satisfied on the male body: hence the conflicts that her eroticism must somehow overcome.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 4: The Lesbian. P. 445 (1974 Vintage edition)
The Second Sex (1949)

“To be gazed at is one danger; to be manhandled is another. Women as a rule are unfamiliar with violence, they have not been through the tussles of childhood and youth as have men; and now the girl is laid hold of, swept away in a bodily struggle in which the man is the stronger. She is no longer free to dream, to delay, to maneuver: she is in his power, at his disposal.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Bk. 2, Pt.. 3, Ch. 3: Sexual initiation. p. 427 (1974 Vintage edition)
The Second Sex (1949)