Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

You cant assume the responsibility for everything you do-or dont do.

Ones life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others by means of love friendship indignation and compassion.

The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another.

Thats what I consider true generosity. You give your all and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

Live with no time out.

One is not born a genius one becomes a genius.

If you havent been happy very young you can still be happy later on but its much harder. You need more luck.

Living by proxy is always a precarious expedient.

Let women be provided with living strength of their own.

If you live long enough youll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.

One is not born a woman - one becomes one.

At night I would climb the steps to the Sacre-Coeur, and I would watch Paris, that futile oasis, scintillating in the wilderness of space. I would weep, because it was so beautiful, and because it was so useless.

All oppression creates a state of war.

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.

It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is lifes parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension. Death does away with time.

What is an adult? A child blown up by age.

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women.

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

Defending the truth is not something one does out of a sense of duty or to allay guilt complexes, but is a reward in itself.