Selected quotes

Beauvoir Simone de

1908 - 1986 (78)

Beauvoir Simone de
Biography More Quotes Quotes by Word
18 quotes
Quote 1

The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them.

Quote 2

If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

Quote 3

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.

Quote 4

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

Quote 5

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

Quote 6

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.

Quote 7

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

Quote 8

Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.

Quote 9

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

Quote 10

Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap.

Quote 11

When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.

Quote 12

I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.

Quote 13

When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values.

Quote 14

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.

Quote 15

"Weakness" is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes

Quote 16

To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.

Quote 17

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.

Quote 18

Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.