Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
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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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From one minute to the next the present is merely an honorary past. It must be filled unceasingly anew to dissemble the curse it carries within itself; that is why Americans like speed, alcohol, thriller films and any sensational news: the demand for new things, and ever newer things, is feverish since nowhere will they rest.
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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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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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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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It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.
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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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...counselling man to treat her as a slave while persuading her that she is a queen.
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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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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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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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All oppression creates a state of war.
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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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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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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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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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That is what chills your spine when you read an account of a suicide: not the frail corpse hanging from the window bars but what happened inside that heart immediately before.
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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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At the moment of their emancipation, women have a need to write their own histories.
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Picasso never thought of himself as avant-garde. I just find it a bad way to think of yourself.
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Each person has his or her own very particular history and after all, the unconscious is the most secret part of ourselves.