• From the hour you're born you begin to die. But between birth and death there's life.
• Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
• There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.
• If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
• 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.
• Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.
• Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.
• It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.
• 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.
• 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.
• Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.
• In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.
• One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.
• I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
• 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.
• All oppression creates a state of war.
• 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.
• Art is an attempt to integrate evil.
• [About Liberation Day] No matter what happened afterward, nothing would take those moments away from me; nothing has taken them away; they shine in my past with a brilliance that has never been tarnished.
• [Kate Millett on Simone de Beauvoir] She had opened a door for us.
• [Betty Friedan on Simone de Beauvoir] I had learned my own existentialism from her. It was The Second Sex that introduced me to that approach to reality and political responsibility ... [and] led me to whatever original analysis of women's existence I have been able to contribute.
• [Betty Friedan on Simone de Beauvoir] I wish her well. She started me out on a road on which I'll keep moving. . . . We need and can trust no other authority than our own personal truth.
• [Gloria Steinem on Simone de Beauvoir] More than any other single human being, she's responsible for the current international women's movement.
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2005. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Simone de Beauvoir Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/de_beauvoir.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
