Simone de Beauvoir quotes - page 7

In horror, in terror, she accepted the metamorphosis - gnat, foam, ant, until death. (Simone de Beauvoir)
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
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. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the shadow certain troubling aspects of a too complex situation. But their attempt to lie to us is in vain. Cowardice doesn't pay. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
This justification, though open upon the entire universe through time and space, will always be finite. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
When the bells began to sound the hour she let out the first scream. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
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. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
If it came to be that each man did what he must, existence would be saved in each one without there being any need of dreaming of a paradise where all would be reconciled in death. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
... her wings are cut and then she is blamed for not knowing how to fly. (Simone de Beauvoir)
Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
It is so tiring to hate someone you love. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
I love you, with a touch of tragedy and quite madly. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
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." View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
Let women be provided with living strength of their own. Let them have the means to attack the world and wrest from it their own subsistence, and their dependence will be abolished -- that of man also. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them to dare, to seek, to invent it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength -each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because of the surrounding circumstances, these talents will be still-born. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation. (Simone de Beauvoir)
If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through 'the eternal feminine,' and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question what is a woman. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir
The Sahara was a spectacle as alive as the sea. The tints of the dunes changed according to the time of day and the angle of the light: golden as apricots from far off, when we drove close to them they turned to freshly made butter; behind us they grew pink; from sand to rock, the materials of which the desert was made varied as much as its tints. View quote
Simone de Beauvoir