Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
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Choice springs from the totality of the person. Thus, to study, to analyze what a person is, does not eliminate the idea of freedom.
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I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves.
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Anais Nin shows an occasional grace in writing, but her work is quite foreign to me, precisely because she wants so much to be feminine and not feminist. And then she is so gaga before so many men. She talks about men I know in France, men who were less than nothing, and she considers them kings, extraordinary people.
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It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.
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Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else.
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Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise.
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Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.
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It's true that what you find in New York is something other than America. Only small towns and small countries are self-satisfied; a real capital goes beyond its borders.
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Woman is determined not by her hormones or by mysterious instincts, but by the manner in which her body and her relation to the world are modified through the action of others than herself.
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If the unconscious must express itself it will do so through the work that you do consciously or subconsciously, with words, with what you have to say.
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All oppression creates a state of war.
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La femme?sait que quand on la regarde on ne la distingue pas de son apparence: elle est juge e, respecte e, de sire e a' travers sa toilette. Woman?knows that when she is looked at she is not considered apart from her appearance: she is judged, respected, desired, by and through her toilette.
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Weakness' is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes.
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A couple who go on living together merely because that was how they began, without any other reason: was that what we were turning into?
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...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.
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The human species is forever in a state of change, forever becoming.
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The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.
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Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me.
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People seem to think that if you keep your head empty you automatically fill your balls.
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A man attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.
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He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time.
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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.
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There is a kind of universality in the human condition, masculine or feminine. That's one thing I continue to believe.
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This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.