Simone de Beauvoir, a pivotal French writer and feminist, was a key figure in promoting existentialism themes in literature.
Born on January 9, 1908, in Paris, she is best recognized for “The Second Sex” (1949), a profound call for debunking the “eternal feminine” myth.
Beauvoir’s education at private institutions led her to the Sorbonne where she met Jean-Paul Sartre in 1929, initiating a lifelong bond.
She pursued teaching till 1943 and later transitioned to writing. With Sartre, she co-founded “Le Temps modernes” in 1945.
Her novels, including “She Came To Stay” (1943) and “The Mandarins” (1954) – the latter winning the Prix Goncourt – elucidate existential themes.
Besides fiction, her writings span philosophy, travel narratives and impactful essays, with “The Second Sex” being particularly influential.
Beauvoir’s autobiographical works offer a vivid depiction of French intellectual life from the 1930s-1970s.
Her later works examined aging and society’s disregard for the elderly.
Beauvoir epitomized the principle of equal vocations for both genders, emphasizing their shared human essence beyond sexuality.
Let’s dive into some of the best quotes by Simone de Beauvoir.
Best Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
1. “Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
2. “I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
3. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
4. “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.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
5. “Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms. For each of them, love would be the revelation of the self through the gift of the self and the enrichment of the universe.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
6. “All oppression creates a state of war.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
7. “Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
8. “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
9. “The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
10. “I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
11. “To give space when what one most yearns for is closeness, that is both the great test and great tragedy of love.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
12. “Marriage is a career which brings about more benefits than many others.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
13. “To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
14. “That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
15. “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
Top Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
16. “Woman has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shaped the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
17. “There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
18. “I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
19. “Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
20. “The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
21. “The writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
22. “Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
Famous Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
23. “In every society the artist or writer remains an outsider…” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
24. “One can not start by saying our earthly destiny has or has no importance, for it depends on us to give it importance.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
25. “If I were proud of anything in my life, it would be of our love. I feel we have to tell to each other as many things as we can, so we are not only lovers, but the closest of friends at the same time.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
26. “She was not to look beyond herself for the meaning of her life.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
27. “On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
28. “The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
29. “I take on a shape and an existence only if I first throw myself into the world by loving, by doing.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
30. “If you haven’t been happy very young, you can still be happy later on, but it’s much harder. You need more luck.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
31. “It must be said in addition that the men with the most scrupulous respect for embryonic life are also those who are most zealous when it comes to condemning adults to death in war.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
Popular Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
32. “Marriage is traditionally the destiny offered to women by society. Most women are married or have been, or plan to be or suffer from not being.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
33. “She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
34. “If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
35. “No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
36. “What is an adult? A child blown up by age.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
37. “To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
38. “Work would be terribly boring if one did not play the game all out, passionately.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
39. “Anger or revolt that does not get into the muscles remains a figment of the imagination.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
40. “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?” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
41. “Jealousy is not contemptible, real love has a beak and claws.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
Inspiring Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
42. “When someone you love dies you pay for the sin of outliving her with a thousand piercing regrets.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
43. “Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
44. “Woman is shut up in a kitchen or in a boudoir, and astonishment is expressed that her horizon is limited. Her wings are clipped, and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
45. “Women’s mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
46. “Buying is a profound pleasure.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
47. “From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
48. “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.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
49. “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.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
50. “What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.” ~ (Simone de Beauvoir).
