Home / Authors / Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

Writer

Simone de Beauvoir was a French writer, philosopher, feminist, and social activist. Known for her profound philosophical thoughts and her advocacy for women's status, she is one of the most influential female thinkers of the 20th century. Her works spanned various genres, including novels, philosophical essays, plays, and memoirs, with her most famous work being 'The Second Sex'.

Filter quotes by topic

All Men Ifs Feminism World Thinking Writing Existence Women Humans Way Existentialism Want Doe Knows Children Feminine Made Situation Age Existential

Famous Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

“A man is in the right in being a man; it is the woman who is in the wrong.”

Men

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“It is for man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of the given. To gain the supreme victory, it is necessary, for one thing, that by and through their natural differentiation men and women unequivocally affirm their brotherhood.”

Men World Given Natural Liberty One Thing Brother Victory Men And Women Gains Supreme Midst Brotherhood Reign Differentiation

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“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.”

Men Real Given Challenges Rooms Existence Conditions Ethics Notion Deny Finished Absurd Fixed Confused Existential Absurdity Ambiguity Ambiguous

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

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

“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.”

Men Said War He Man Adults Condemning Zealous

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“Existentialism does not offer to the reader the consolations of an abstract evasion: existentialism proposes no evasion. On the contrary, its ethics is experienced in the truth of life, and it then appears as the only proposition of salvation which one can address to men.”

Men Doe Reader Offers Ethics Salvation Contrary Abstract Existentialism Addresses Truth Of Life Propositions Consolation Propose Evasion

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

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

“When Goya was 80 he drew an ancient man propped on two sticks, with a great mass of white hair and beard all over his face, and the inscription, "I am still learning."”

Men Stills Two Faces White Hair Mass Aging Sticks Ancient Beard Inscriptions White Hair Goya

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“It is a difficult matter for man to realize the extreme importance of social discriminations which seem outwardly insignificant but which produce in woman moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to spring from her original nature.”

Men Matter Seems Social Difficult Realizing Moral Effects Produce Intellectual Spring Importance Originals Profound Extremes Discrimination Insignificant Discord

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“Woman has always been man's dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shaped the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change.”

Ifs Men World Two Today Sex Situation Slave Equality Dependent Handicapped

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“The innumerable conflicts that set men and women against one another come from the fact that neither is prepared to assume all the consequences of this situation which the one has offered and the other accepted.”

Men Facts Situation Conflict Men And Women Consequence Assuming Prepared Accepted

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“Old age is better for women than for men. First of all, they have less far to fall, since their lives are more mediocre than those of most men.”

Men Firsts Age Fall Old Age Mediocre

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“The time that one gains cannot be accumulated in a storehouse; it is contradictory to want to save up existence, which, the fact is, exists only by being spent and there is a good case for showing that airplanes, machines, the telephone, and the radio do not make men of today happier than those of former times.”

Men Want Facts Today Existence Cases Technology Gains Machines Radio Former Airplane Telephones Contradictory Science And Technology

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“Whatever the country, capitalist or socialist, man was everywhere crushed by technology, made a stranger to his own work, imprisoned, forced into stupidity.”

Men Made Country Technology Stranger Stupidity Capitalist Socialist Crushed

Book:Les Belles Images

Source: Les Belles Images

“The American woman's inequality with men is proved by her defiant attitude.”

Men Women Attitude Inequality American Woman

Book:America Day by Day

Source: America Day by Day

“Man is a talking animal and he will always let himself be swayed by the power of the word. Machines won't change human nature.”

Men Humans Animal Talking Human Nature Machines

Book:Les Belles Images

Source: Les Belles Images

“Let women be provided with living strength of their own. Let them have the means to attack the world and wrest from it their own subsistence, and their dependence will be abolished -- that of man also.”

Men World Mean Dependence Subsistence

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

About the Author

Born: January 9, 1908
Died: April 14, 1986
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 491

Books & Sources

The Second SexRelated source material

The Woman DestroyedRelated source material

The Ethics of AmbiguityRelated source material

Memoirs of a Dutiful DaughterRelated source material

The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of ExistentialismRelated source material

A Very Easy DeathRelated source material

Les Belles ImagesRelated source material

La vieillesseRelated source material

Quando tutte le donne del mondo...Related source material

The prime of lifeRelated source material

Similar Authors

Gloria SteinemBrowse related quotes
Jean-Paul SartreBrowse related quotes
Gilbert K. ChestertonBrowse related quotes
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheBrowse related quotes
Warren FarrellBrowse related quotes
Friedrich NietzscheBrowse related quotes
Thomas CarlyleBrowse related quotes
Jean de la BruyereBrowse related quotes
D. H. LawrenceBrowse related quotes
C. S. LewisBrowse related quotes