“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."”

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "She was beautiful, with a beauty so severe and so solitary that at first it was startling. "Ah! If only there were two …" by Simone de Beauvoir?

Simone de Beauvoir152

French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, po… 1908–1986

Related quotes

“I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I'm so indebted to her for.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)
Variant: 'Twas a woman who drove me to drink. I never had the courtesy to thank her.

“"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty … But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a self-destructive beauty…"”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

On the Alder Tree
Phantastes (1858)

“Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though she were still in love.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Maxim 246, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)

“She thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist's religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“For a long time she flew, only when she thought no one else was watching.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“There must be several voices together in one voice for it to be beautiful. And several meanings in one word for it to be beautiful.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

“Nothing is so beautiful as the first few minutes alone with someone who might love one and someone whom one might love. There is nothing so quiet as those minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet expectancy. It is for the sake of those few minutes that one loves, not the many that follow. Never again, they knew, would anything so beautiful happen to them. They would be more joyous perhaps; more ardent too, and immeasurably content with their own bodies, and each other's. But never again would it be so beautiful.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 190

“I know how you are with your words, and, Will- I love all of them. Every word you say. The silly ones, the mad ones, the beautiful ones, and the ones that are only for me. I love them, and I love you." - Tessa Gray”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“He’s so beautiful,” she said wistfully. “He’s like an angel.”
“Yep,” I agreed flatly. “The one that fell.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“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."”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Simone de Beauvoir152

Related quotes

Related topics