Quotes from Simone de Beauvoir

And sometimes I think myself sensible, and sometimes I accuse myself of cowardice. In fact I am defenseless because I have never supposed I had any rights. I expect a lot of the people I love - too much, perhaps. I expect a lot, and I even ask for it. But I do not know how to insist.

How could women ever have had genius when all possibility of accomplishing a work of genius - or just a work - was refused them?

Pero, efectivamente, debo esforzarme. Y no sólo por táctica: por moral. He tenido exactamente la vida que quise: tengo que merecer ese privilegio. Si flaqueo ante el primer tropiezo, todo lo que pienso acerca de mi misma no es sino ilusión.

Women's actions have never been more than symbolic agitation; they have one only what men have been willing to concede to them; they have taken nothing; they have received.

From the top of the hill I look at the path travelled, and the entire path is present in the joy of my success. The walk gives the rest its worth, and my thirst gives the glass of water its worth. A whole past comes together in the moment of enjoyment

Mystère pour l'homme, la femme est regardée comme mystère en soi.

What is beyond doubt is that until now women's possibilities have been stifled and lost to humanity, and in her and everyone's interest it is high time she be left to take her own chances.

Women's actions have never been more than symbolic agitation; they have won only what men have been willing to concede to them; they have taken nothing; they have received.

It is that they lack the concrete means to organize themselves into a unit that could posit itself in opposition. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and unlike the proletariat, they have no solidarity of labor or interests; they even lack their own space… They live disbursed among men, tied by homes, work, economic interests, and social conditions to certain men- fathers or husbands- more closely than to other women.

We have seen that in spite of legends, no physiological destiny imposes eternal hostility on the Male and Female.

Trudno bowiem m??czy?nie oceni? ogromne znaczenie dyskryminacji spoÅ'ecznych, które na zewnÄ…trz wydajÄ… siÄ™ bÅ'ahe, a których konsekwencje moralne i intelektualne tkwiÄ… w kobiecie tak gÅ'Ä™boko, ?e wydajÄ… siÄ™ mie? ?ródÅ'o w jej pierwotnej strukturze.

Mi acción no es para otro sino lo que él mismo la hace ser: ¿cómo puedo, pues, saber de antemano lo que hago?; y si no lo sé, ¿cómo puedo proponerme obrar por la humanidad?

It was not murder that fulfilled Sade's erotic nature; it was literature.

No se muere de haber nacido, ni de haber vivido, ni de vejez. Se muere de algo».

A woman on her own they think they can do anything how despicable people are when you're down they stamp on you. I kick back I keep my end up but a woman alone is spat on.

Existentialism alone gives - like religions - a real role to evil, and it is this, perhaps, which make its judgments so gloomy. Men do not like to feel themselves in danger. Yet, it is because there are real dangers, real failures and real earthly damnation that words like victory, wisdom, or joy have meaning. Nothing is decided in advance, and it is because man has something to lose and because he can lose that he can also win.

Moreover, humanity is something other than a species: it is an historical becoming; it is defined by the way it assumes natural facticity.

a abundância de lazer nos empobrece.

Il fatto è che sono una scrittrice: una donna scrittrice non è una donna di casa che scrive, ma qualcuno la cui intera esistenza è condizionata dallo scrivere. È una vita che ne vale un'altra: che ha i suoi motivi, il suo ordine, i suoi fini che si possono giudicare stravaganti solo se di essa non si capisce niente.

Oh, these splinters of hope that pierce my heart every now and then, more wounding than despair itself!

One is not the neighbor of anyone; one makes the other a neighbor by making oneself his neighbor through an act

A ella le gustaba la vida mundana y lo seguía alegremente».

A jolly future! Henri closed his eyes. From Vassieux to Hiroshima – they had gone a long way in a single year. The next war would really be something! And the next post-war period, that would be even neater than this one! That is, if there is a next post-war period – if the defeated don't take it into their heads to blow up the world.

They bear the responsibility for a world which is not the work of a strange power, but of themselves, where their defeats are inscribed, and their victories as well.