Quotes from Simone de Beauvoir

The goal toward which I surpass myself must appear to me as a point of departure toward a new act of surpassing.

Let us beware lest our lack of imagination impoverish the future; the future is only an abstraction for us; each of us secretly laments the absence in it of what was; but tomorrow's humankind will live the future in its flesh and in its freedom; that future will be its present, and humankind will in turn prefer it;

C'était tellement attendu, et tellement inconcevable, (...). C'était elle encore, et à jamais son absence.

I knew that no harm could ever come to me from him - unless he were to die before I died. Happiness is a rarer vocation than people suppose. I hoped I might help her to stop wasting her resources on barren preoccupations such as boredom or guilt...

Existia um livro que eu acreditava ter me feito vislumbrar quem seria no futuro: Mulherzinhas, de Louisa May Alcott

La tierra está a mi alrededor como una vasta hipótesis que ya no verifico.

Je ne peux pas m'approprier le champ de neige sur lequel je glisse: il demeure étranger, interdit; mais je me complais dans cet effort meme vers un possession impossible: je l'éprouve comme un triomphe, non comme une défait

D'improvviso, l'avvenire esisteva; mi avrebbe cambiata in un'altra che avrebbe detto io e non sarebbe più stata me.

It is appalling not to be there to console someone for the pain you cause by leaving . . .

Muž je v práve preto, že je muž. V nepráve je žena.

The phenomena of asexual propagation and of parthenogenesis appear to be neither more nor less fundamental than those of sexual reproduction. I have said that the latter has no claim a priori to be considered basic; but neither does any fact indicate that it is reducible to any more fundamental mechanism.

And she antagonized me by preferring the force of authority to friendliness.

Exister authentiquement ce n'est pas nier le mouvement spontané de ma transcendance, mais seulement refuser de me perdre en lui

Distesa su un prato, contemplavo, proprio all'altezza del mio occhio, l'accavallarsi dei fili d'erba, tutti identici, ciascuno affondato nella minuscola giungla che gli nascondeva tutti gli altri. Questa ripetizione indefinita dell'ignoranza, dell'indifferenza, equivaleva alla morte. Levai gli occhi alla quercia; dominava il paesaggio e non aveva eguali. Io sarei stata come lei.

For fifteen years they exerted pressure, at first without violence, marching with banners, invading meetings, getting arrested, putting on hunger strikes, marching on Parliament..In 1912 more violent tactics were adopted: they burned houses, slashed pictures, trampled flowerbeds, threw stones at police, overwhelmed Lloyd George and Sir Edward Grey with repeated delegations, interrupted public speeches.

Science condemns itself to failure when, yielding to the infatuation of the serious, it aspires to attain being, to contain it, and to possess it; but it finds its truth if it considers itself as a free engagement of thought in the given, aiming, at each discovery, not at fusion with the thing, but at the possibility of new discoveries; what the mind then projects is the concrete accomplishment of its freedom.

All day long I thought of André, and from time to time there was something that flickered in my brain. Like having been hit on the head, when one's sight is disordered and one sees two different images of the world at different heights, without being able to make out which is above and which below. The two pictures I had, of the past André and the present André, did not coincide.

As long as perfect economic equality is not realized in society and as long as customs allow the woman to profit as wife and mistress from the privileges held by certain men, the dream of passive success will be maintained in her and will hold back her own accomplishments.

Recordemos que el hombre es trascendencia; lo que reclama, no lo reclama sino para superarlo.

no exato momento, num outro jardim, completamente diferente, exatamente igual, alguém pronuncia essas palavras e o mesmo sorriso repousa em outro rosto

Are you going to go on sulking for a long while?' 'I'm afraid I am.

We can hope to grasp the significance of sexuality only by studying it in its concrete manifestations; and then perhaps the meaning of the word female will stand revealed.

Sovyetler birliÄŸinde evlilik devrimin ilk y?llar?nda yaln?zca eÅŸlerin özgürlüÄŸüne baÄŸl? bireyler aras? bir sözleÅŸme say?lm??t?r; bugünse devletin eÅŸlere yüklediÄŸi bir hizmet say?lmaktad?r. Aranan ÅŸey, bireysel mutluluÄŸu saÄŸlamak deÄŸil, kad?nla erkeÄŸin cinsel ve ekonomik birliÄŸini topluluk ç?kar? doÄŸrultusunda aÅŸmakt?r.

She [the female] appears essentially to the male as a sexual being. For him she is sex - absolute sex, no less.