Simone de Beauvoir Quotes
Simone de Beauvoir was a 20th-century French philosopher, writer, and political activist, a central figure of post-war French existentialism and a foundational thinker of modern feminist philosophy. Her 1949 work The Second Sex offered a sweeping philosophical analysis of women's situation, arguing that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman; the book became a defining text of the second-wave feminist movement. The quotes below are attributed to Simone de Beauvoir, organized by topic.
Browse Simone de Beauvoir by topic
Simone de Beauvoir on Death
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“There is no such thing as a natural death : nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die; but for every man his death is an accident and even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”
Il n'y a pas de mort naturelle: rien de ce qui arrive à l'homme n'est jamais naturel puisque sa présence met le monde en question. Tous les hommes sont mortels: mais pour chaque homme sa mort est un accident et, même s'il la connaît et y consent, une violence indue.
Simone de Beauvoir on Freedom
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“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
On ne naît pas femme: on le devient. -
Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely.”
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Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“To will oneself free is also to will others free.”
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“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom .”
The Blood of Others [ Le sang des autres ] (1946)
Simone de Beauvoir on Knowledge
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Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting.”
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“The Blood of Others [ Le sang des autres ] (1946)”
I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom . -
“Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963) as translated by Richard Howard (1968) - Excerpt online”
It was said that I refused to grant any value to the maternal instinct and to love . This was not so. I simply asked that women should experience them truthfully and freely, whereas they often use them as excuses and take refuge in them, only to find themselves imprisoned in that refuge when those emotions have dried up in their hearts. I was accused of preaching sexual promiscuity; but at no poin -
“Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963) as translated by Richard Howard (1968)”
Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness , but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. Psychiatrists have told me that they give The Second Sex to their women patients to read, and not merely to intellectual women but to lower-middle-class women, to office workers and women working in factories. 'Your book was a great help to me. Your book saved me,' are the w -
“Il n'y a pas de mort naturelle: rien de ce qui arrive à l'homme n'est jamais naturel puisque sa présence met le monde en question. Tous les hommes sont mortels: mais pour chaque homme sa mort est un accident et, même s'il la connaît et y consent, une violence indue.”
There is no such thing as a natural death : nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die; but for every man his death is an accident and even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation. | Une Mort Très Douce (1964) translated by Patrick O'Brian as A Very Easy Death (1965) last words
Simone de Beauvoir on Life
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Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”
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“If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”
All Men Are Mortal, 1946
Simone de Beauvoir on Love
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Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her 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.”
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“His personal prestige, his qualities, his competence assure him a preponderant role however; since 1927 he has been above all the unchallenged specialist on peasant question. But the power he exercises is no more dictatorial than, for example, Roosevelt 's was. New China's Constitution renders impossible the concentration of authority in one man's hands; the country is governed by a team whose members have been united through a long common struggle and by a close friendship.”
On Mao Zedong , in The Long March . World Publishing Company. 1958. p. 427.
Simone de Beauvoir on Mind
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Attributed to Simone de Beauvoir:
“To lose confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in oneself.”
Simone de Beauvoir on Nature
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“On Mao Zedong , in The Long March . World Publishing Company. 1958. p. 427.”
His personal prestige, his qualities, his competence assure him a preponderant role however; since 1927 he has been above all the unchallenged specialist on peasant question. But the power he exercises is no more dictatorial than, for example, Roosevelt 's was. New China's Constitution renders impossible the concentration of authority in one man's hands; the country is governed by a team whose mem
Simone de Beauvoir on Politics
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“Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.”
Conclusion, p. 543
Simone de Beauvoir on Time
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“The Communists , following Hegel , speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.”
On her work All Men are Mortal in Force of Circumstances (1963), p. 73
Simone de Beauvoir on Truth
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“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth, and truth rewarded me.”
All Said and Done (1972), p. 16 ISBN 1569249814
Things actually not said by Simone de Beauvoir
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Simone de Beauvoir but are in fact from someone else. Did Simone de Beauvoir say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Simone de Beauvoir say this? No.
“Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Fyodor Dostoevsky. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov ; this was used as an epigraph in The Blood of Others , and is sometimes attributed to de Beauvoir
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Did Simone de Beauvoir say this? No.
“Well-behaved women rarely make history.”
This line was written by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in a 1976 scholarly article on funeral sermons for Puritan women in the American Quarterly. It was popularized as a slogan in the 1990s and has since been misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, and various feminist philosophers. Ulrich later wrote a book titled with the line and has repeatedly clarified that her original meaning was descriptive, not prescriptive.