Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

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

“It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's 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.”

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

“Art is an attempt to integrate evil.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“All the idols made by man, however terrifying they may be, are in point of fact subordinate to him, and that is why he will always have it in his power to destroy them.”

“Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.”

“Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male's superiority.”

“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.”

“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.”

“All oppression creates a state of war.”

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

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

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