Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth9 January 1908
CountryFrance
artist order rooted
In order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society.
proud would-be our-love
If I were proud of anything in my life, it would be of our love. I feel we have to tell to each other as many things as we can, so we are not only lovers, but the closest of friends at the same time.
good-luck complacency vain
it is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck.
children men young
Every time a man dies, a child dies too, and an adolescent and a young man as well; everyone weeps for the one who was dear to him.
rocks sea light
the Sahara was a spectacle as alive as the sea. The tints of the dunes changed according to the time of day and the angle of the light: golden as apricots from far off, when we drove close to them they turned to freshly made butter; behind us they grew pink; from sand to rock, the materials of which the desert was made varied as much as its tints ...
memories sadness age
Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.
men political-revolution moral
The day knowledge was preferred to wisdom and mere usefulness to beauty. . . . Only a moral revolution -- not a social or a political revolution -- only a moral revolution would lead man back to his lost truth.
father home character
The father's life is surrounded by mysterious prestige: the hours he spends in the home, the room where he works, the objects around him, his occupations, his habits, have a sacred character. It is he who feeds the family, is the one in charge and the head. Usually he works outside the home, and it is through him that the household communicates with the rest of the world: he is the embodiment of this adventurous, immense, difficult, and marvelous world; he is transcendence, he is God.
reality murder captives
... words have to murder reality before they can hold it captive ...
struggle love-is self
Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality.
orange jelly green
I would stand transfixed before the windows of the confectioners' shops, fascinated by the luminous sparkle of candied fruits, the cloudy lustre of jellies, the kaleidoscope inflorescence of acidulated fruit drops - red, green, orange, violet: I coveted the colours themselves as much as the pleasure they promised me.
life-is wells knows
Anyway I know only too well that all life is nothing but a brief reprieve from death.
economic dependence nations
A Darwinian nation of economic fitness abhors idleness, dependence, non-productivity.
boxes ballots mechanism
The ballot box is a most inadequate mechanism of change.