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 nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles—desire, possession, love, dream, adventure—worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us—giving, conquering, uniting—will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the ‘division’ of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Hypocrisy
The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Equality
All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.
—Simone de Beauvoir
All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Oppression
To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Acceptance
Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside—from others. We do not accept it willingly.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Age, Aging
One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Women
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
Topics: Guilt
Men tend to take abortion lightly; they regard it as one of the numerous hazards imposed on women by malignant nature, but fail to realise fully the values involved. The woman who has recourse to abortion is disowning feminine values, her values, and at the same time is in most radical fashion running counter to the ethics established by men. Her whole moral universe is being disrupted….[H]ow could they fail to feel an inner mistrust of the presumptuous principles that men publicly proclaim and secretly disregard? They learn to believe no longer in what men say when they exalt woman or when they exalt man; the one thing they are sure of is this rifled and bleeding womb, these shreds of crimson life, this child that is not there.
—Simone de Beauvoir
To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Husbands, Marriage, Jobs
One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning—the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.
—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
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
Topics: Parenting, Parents
On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself—on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. In the meantime, love represents in its most touching form the curse that lies heavily upon woman confined in the feminine universe, woman mutilated, insufficient unto herself.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Men & Women
It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.
—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, compassion.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Service, Compassion
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
Topics: Explanation
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
Topics: Aging, Age
When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Women, Feminism
Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Society
Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Buying is a profound pleasure.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Shopping
Those interested in perpetuating present conditions are always in tears about the marvelous past that is about to disappear, without having so much as a smile for the young future.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Change
In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.
—Simone de Beauvoir
I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Freedom
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
Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female—whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
—Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a genius. One becomes a genius.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Genius
I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.
—Simone de Beauvoir
Topics: Truth, Certainty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Jean-Paul Sartre French Philosopher
- Roland Barthes French Literary Theorist
- Michel Foucault French Philosopher
- Georges Bataille French Essayist, Intellectual
- Henri Bergson French Philosopher
- Albert Camus Algerian-born French Philosopher
- Voltaire French Philosopher, Author
- Gaston Bachelard French Philosopher
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin French Jesuit Scientist
- Marquis de Sade French Writer
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