Simone de Beauvoir quotes

Simone de Beauvoir was a French writer, philosopher, and feminist, best known for her influential works on existentialism and gender. Her book "The Second Sex" became a foundational text in feminist theory. She inspired generations by challenging societal norms and advocating for women's rights. Here are 185 of her quotes:

The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them. (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

If you live long enough, you'll see every victory turn into a defeat.

Simone de Beauvoir

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

Simone de Beauvoir

Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.

Simone de Beauvoir

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

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

All oppression creates a state of war.

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

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

In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation. (Simone de Beauvoir)

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

Simone de Beauvoir

To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.

Simone de Beauvoir

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

Simone de Beauvoir

What is an adult? A child blown up by age.

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

This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.

Simone de Beauvoir

Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.

Simone de Beauvoir

The writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.

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

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)

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].

Simone de Beauvoir

Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen.

Simone de Beauvoir

Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.

Simone de Beauvoir

It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.

Simone de Beauvoir

Previous
1 (Current)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Next

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir - Image

Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Occupation: French Philosopher
Born: January 9, 1908
Died: April 14, 1986
Quotes count: 185
Wikipedia: Simone de Beauvoir

Related authors

Jean-Paul Sartre 371

French Philosopher

Albert Camus 488

French Philosopher

Judith Butler 51

American Philosopher

Nelson Algren 48

American Novelist

Virginia Woolf 500

English Author

Friedrich Nietzsche 855

German Philosopher

Michel Foucault 137

French Historian

Hannah Arendt 141

German-American Historian

Betty Friedan 43

American Activist

Mary Wollstonecraft 76

English Writer