Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir

"In a way, literature is true than life,' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. And that's why it's false. But it's damned satisfying. In life, you're constantly denying yourself, and others are always contradicting you. On paper, I make time stand still and I impose my convictions on the whole world; they become the only reality."
62 Quotes
"In a way, literature is true than life,' he said to himself. 'On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you commit suicide; you carry things to the very end. And that's why it's false. But it's damned satisfying. In life, you're constantly denying yourself, and others are always contradicting you. On paper, I make time stand still and I impose my convictions on the whole world; they become the only reality."
Simone de Beauvoir The Mandarins
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"I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end."
Simone de Beauvoir La vieillesse
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"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[...]."
Simone de Beauvoir The Woman Destroyed
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"I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"On ne naît pas femme: on le devient."
Simone de Beauvoir Le deuxième sexe, Tome II
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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.”"
Simone de Beauvoir The Ethics of Ambiguity
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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, and compassion”"
Simone de Beauvoir
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"“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”"
Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex
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"I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male's superiority."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"To catch a husband is an art to hold him is a job."
Simone de Beauvoir
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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."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women."
Simone de Beauvoir
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"What is an adult? A child blown up by age."
Simone de Beauvoir
"It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time."
Simone de Beauvoir
"Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth."
Simone de Beauvoir
"All oppression creates a state of war."
Simone de Beauvoir
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