Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
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Françoise could not help taking a surreptitious glance at Xavière: she gave a start of amazement. Xavière was no longer watching, her head was lowered. Françoise barely suppressed a scream. The girl was pressing the lighted end against her skin, a bitter smile curling her lips. It was an intimate, solitary smile, like that of a half-wit; the voluptuous, tortured smile of a woman possessed of some secret pleasure.
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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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Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.
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A man attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.
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It is doubtless impossible to approach any human problems with a mind free from bias.
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You can't address yourself to women by speaking a language which no average woman will understand. In my opinion, it's wrong.
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At the moment of their emancipation, women have a need to write their own histories.
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Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation.
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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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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.
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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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They Americans want to believe that Good and Evil can be defined in precise categories, that Good is already, or will be easily achieved. ... if this optimism appears too superficial, they will try to create a kind of anti-God: the U.S.S.R. That is Evil, and it only needs to be annihilated to re-establish the reign of Good.
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Literature takes its revenge on reality by making it the slave of fiction.
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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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She would never change, but one day at the touch of a fingertip she would fall to dust.
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Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.
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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.
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One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.
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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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Dwelling-place and food are useful for life but give it no significance: the immediate goals of the housekeeper are only means, not true ends.
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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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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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What would Prince Charming have for occupation if he had not to awaken the Sleeping beauty?
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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.