Simone de Beauvoir: Quotes about men

Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: In spite of so many stubborn lies, at every moment, at every opportunity, the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the insignificance and the sovereign importance of each man and all men. There was Stalingrad and there was Buchenwald, and neither of the two wipes out the other. Since we do not succeed in fleeing it, let us therefore try to look the truth in the face. Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting [C'est dans la connaissance des conditions authentiques de notre vie qu'il nous faut puiser la force de vivre et des raisons d'agir].

Pt. III : The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch03.htm#s2, Ch. 1 : The Aesthetic Attitude
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible. There have been war, plague, scandal, and treason, and there is no way of our preventing their having taken place; the executioner became an executioner and the victim underwent his fate as a victim without us; all that we can do is to reveal it, to integrate it into the human heritage, to raise it to the dignity of the aesthetic existence which bears within itself its finality; but first this history had to occur: it occurred as scandal, revolt, crime, or sacrifice, and we were able to try to save it only because it first offered us a form. Today must also exist before being confirmed in its existence: its destination in such a way that everything about it already seemed justified and that there was no more of it to reject, then there would also be nothing to say about it, for no form would take shape in it; it is revealed only through rejection, desire, hate and love. In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men. But at the heart of his existence he finds the exigency which is common to all men; he must first will freedom within himself and universally; he must try to conquer it: in the light of this project situations are graded and reasons for acting are made manifest.

Part I : Ambiguity and Freedom
The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947)
Context: Men of today seem to feel more acutely than ever the paradox of their condition. They know themselves to be the supreme end to which all action should be subordinated, but the exigencies of action force them to treat one another as instruments or obstacles, as means. The more widespread their mastery of the world, the more they find themselves crushed by uncontrollable forces.

Source: All Men are Mortal (1946), p. 201
Context: What did today's sacrifices matter: the Universe lay ahead in the future. What did burnings at the stake and massacres matter? The Universe was somewhere else, always somewhere else! And it isn't anywhere: there are only men, men eternally divided.

Source: The Second Sex

Source: The Ethics of Ambiguity

Marianne to Raimon
All Men are Mortal (1946)

Introduction : Woman as Other
The Second Sex (1949)

The Second Sex (1949)

All Men are Mortal (1946)

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

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

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)

The Second Sex (1949)

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