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Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

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Famous Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

“I should like to be the landscape which I am contemplating, 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. My contemplation is an excruciation only because it is also a joy. I can not appropriate the snow field where i slide. It remains foreign, forbidden, but I take delight in this very effort toward an impossible possession. I experience it as a triumph, not as a defeat.”

ThinkingShouldI CanMightJoyWaterEffortImpossibleSkyFieldsQuietRemainsDistanceDefeatDelightPossessionBonesFleshSnowLandscapeTriumphContemplationExistentialismAppropriateContemplatingCan NotForbiddenSlides
Book:The Ethics of Ambiguity
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“I've always been keenly aware of the passing of time. I've always thought that I was old. Even when I was twelve, I thought it was awful to be thirty. I felt that something was lost. At the same time, I was aware of what I could gain, and certain periods of my life have taught me a great deal. But, in spite of everything, I've always been haunted by the passing of time and by the fact that death keeps closing in on us.”

FactsCertainTimeLostFeltDealsTaughtPeriodsGainsPassingPassingsAwfulThirtySpiteTwelveClosing
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

PhilosophyMotivationalAgeWomenBornFeminismFemaleEmpowermentComing Of AgeStrong WomenEmpowering WomenFemale EmpowermentBeing A WomanWomen Empowering WomenInspirational WomenInspirational Strong WomenWomen PowerBeing A Strong WomanI Am WomanMale PrivilegeStrong Independent WomenBeing Independent WomanStrong Powerful WomenWomen Best InspirationalStrong Women MotivationBecoming A WomanSex And Gender
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength -each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.”

GivingChildrenWarSelfDreamJoyLyingValuesIndividualPleasureExistenceMarriageFindingsCapableWeaknessAskingOneselfCurseWarmthDeceptivePlenitude
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.”

YearsMadeLyingHeavenSleepBattleEatingTasksCleanSpreadEndlessDustTortureDirtRepetitionGreyCleaningIdenticalHousewifeHouseworkSisyphusMarking Time
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other...when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.”

MenHumansWholeTogetherFormHumanityExistenceHalfSubjectsBearsCoupleRelationIndependentSlaveryRefuseDenyGenuineHypocrisySignificanceDivisionAbolish
Author:Simone de Beauvoir
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“To protest in the name of morality against 'excesses' or 'abuses' is an error which hints on active complicity. There are no 'abuses' or 'excesses' here, simpily an all-pervasive system.”

NamesMoralityAbuseErrorsActiveProtestExcessHintsComplicity
Book:Djamila Boupacha: the story of the torture of a young Algerian girl which shocked liberal French opinion
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“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.”

IfsMindGivenPossibilitySeriousProjectsDiscoveryAccomplishmentEngagementConcreteAspireInfatuationFusionNew Discoveries
Book:The Ethics of Ambiguity
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“The individual is defined only by his relationship to the world and to other individuals; he exists only by transcending himself, and his freedom can be achieved only through the freedom of others. He justifies his existence by a movement which, like freedom, springs from his heart but which leads outside of himself.”

WorldHeartIndividualExistenceMovementSpringDefinedJustifyExistentialTranscending
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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“The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won. Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics; it is because man's condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.”

MenRealGivenChallengesRoomsExistenceConditionsEthicsNotionDenyFinishedAbsurdFixedConfusedExistentialAbsurdityAmbiguityAmbiguous
Book:The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
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