Quotes from Simone de Beauvoir

If I were the earth it would disgust me, all this vermin on my back, I'd shake it off.

Mystery is never more than a mirage that vanishes as we draw near to look at it.

Je crois que je comprends bien comment ca peut te faire. Nous avons essayée de batir notre amour par-delà les instants, mais seuls les instants sont surs. Pour le reste on a besoin de foi; et la foi, est-ce courage ou paresse?

Surviving one's own life, living on the other side of it like a spectator, is quite comfortable after all. You no longer expect anything, no longer fear anything, and every hour is like a memory.

maintenant je n'ai plus de regrets,parce que les choses qui n'existent pas pour moi,il me semble qu'elles n'existent absolument pas.

All she had to do was make the simplest of gestures - open her hands and let go her hold. She lifted one hand and moved the fingers of it; they responded, in surprise and obedience, and this obedience of a thousand little unsuspected muscles was in itself a miracle. Why ask for more?

Ready-made phrases and the ritual of etiquette were unknown to him; his thoughtfulness was pure improvisation, and it resembled the little inventions affection inspires.

Kad?n? götürüp mutfaÄŸa ya da süslenme odas?na kapat?yor, sonra da ufkunun darl???na ÅŸa??yoruz; kanatlar?n? kesiyoruz, sonra, uçam?yor diye yak?n?yoruz.

The validity of the cook's work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table; she needs their approbation, demands that they appreciate her dishes and call for second helpings; she is upset if they are not hungry, to the point that one wonders whether the fried potatoes are for her husband or her husband for the fried potatoes.

In the old days the worst part of my depression used to be the astonishment it caused me, the scandalized way in which I fought against it. Nowadays, on the other hand, I accept it cheerfully enough, like an old familiar friend.

Woman has ovaries and a uterus; such are the particular conditions that lock her in her subjectivity; some even say she thinks with her hormones. Man vainly forgets that his anatomy also contains hormones and testicles. He grasps his body as a direct and normal link with the world that he believes he apprehends in all objectivity, whereas he considers woman's body an obstacle, a prison, burdened by everything that particularizes it.

How will the fact of being women have affected our lives? What precise opportunities have been given us, and which ones have been denied? What destiny awaits our younger sisters, and in which direction should we point them?

biology alone cannot provide an answer to the question that concerns us: why is woman the Other? The question is how, in her, nature has been taken on in the course of history; the question is what humanity has made of the human female.

I should like this sky, this quiet water, to think themselves within me, that it might be I whom they express in flesh and bone, and I remain at a distance. But it is also by this distance that the sky and the water exist before me.

I went to get a detective story. You have to kill time. But time will kill me too - and there´s the true, preestablished balance.

Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms...

the man who does not understand a woman is happy to replace his subjective deficiency with an objective resistance; instead of admitting his ignorance, he recognizes the presence of a mystery exterior to himself: here is an excuse that flatters his laziness and vanity at the same time.

It is easier to put people in chains than to remove them if the chains bring prestige, said George Bernard Shaw.

It is because I reject lies and running away that I am accused of pessimism; but this rejection implies hope — the hope that truth may be of use. And this is a more optimistic attitude than the choice of indifference, ignorance or sham.

Législateurs, prêtres, philosophes, écrivains, savants se sont acharnés à démontrer que la condition subordonnée de la femme était voulue dans le ciel et profitable à la terre.

Nul n'est plus arrogant à l'égard des femmes, agressif ou dédaigneux, qu'un homme inquiet de sa virilité.

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.

The sin of smiling whilst Louise was weeping, the sin of shedding my own tears and not hers. The sin of being another being.

Un amor auténtico debería de asumir la contingencia del otro, es decir, sus carencias, sus límites y su gratuidad originaria; así no pretendería ser una salvación sino una relación entre seres humanos.