30 Simone De Beauvoir Quotes You Should Absolutely Read

Simone De Beauvoir Quotes are impactful and concise, they display her sense of feminism, existentialism, ethics, and the human condition. We will recount these famous quotes and learn more about Simon De Beauvoir and understand why she has had such influence over the themes she wrote even now.

Who is Simone De Beauvoir?

Simone De Beauvoir, a French Existentialist Philosopher, social theorist, activist, and last but not least a writer. She is known for her treatise on ‘The Second Sex’ in 1949, classic feminist literature that was an argument for the abolition of what she called the Myth of the ‘eternal feminine’.

She was also the winner of the Prix Goncourt for the novel The Mandarins in 1954.

Her works on Ethics, Feminism, autobiography, politics, and fiction were rich and corpus.  She also worked alongside other famous Existentialists like Hean-pal Sartre, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Even so, despite her feminist existentialism and feminist theory which were widely significant and influential, she never thought of herself as a philosopher.

In any case, just like every other person on earth, She was also not without controversy: She had lost her teaching job for a moment of time during her career when she was accused of Sexually abusing some of her students.

Her long-time Lover Jean-Paul Sartre and many other French intellectuals campaigned for the release of people convicted of Child sex offenses and signed a petition advocating the abolition of age consent laws in France.

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes Listed

Simone de Beauvoir Quotes span the themes of existentialism, feminism, ethics humanism, and the human condition. which is why these themes have had a significant impact on Feminist theory and existentialist philosophy.

Here are some quotes by Simone de Beauvoir:

“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.”

“When women act like women, they are accused of being inferior. When women act like human beings, they are accused of behaving like men.”

“The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power.”

“To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future.”

“Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”

“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.”

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.”

“You have to start from where you are today and from what can be done.”

“The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.”

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.”

“To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.”

“If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”

“No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.”

“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”

“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.”

“All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.”

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”

“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.”

“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”

“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.”

“Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.”

“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”

“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.”

“All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.”

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”

“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.”

“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.”

“Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.”

“I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way.”

“Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence.”

So These are the Simone Beauvoir Quotes listed in order of relevance. Her Views of Feminism and humanitarian views display her image of thought process which has given a lot of people to think over, in many ways, we can say that her quotes are moving as they can impact one’s consciousness very deeply and change how they view the world itself.

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