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
country literature understood
A foreign country can best be understood through its literature.
immortality terrible curse
immortality is a terrible curse.
sugar duration jars
there is a poetry in making preserves; the housewife has caught duration in the snare of sugar, she has enclosed life in jars.
women history historical
it is not the inferiority of women that has caused their historical insignificance; it is rather their historical insignificance that has doomed them to inferiority.
civilization silence age
Society turns away from the aged worker as though he belonged to another species. That is why the whole question is buried in a conspiracy of silence. Old age exposes the failure of our entire civilization.
artist outsiders remains
In every society the artist or writer remains an outsider ...
mistake firsts pedestal
A writer is hoisted up onto a pedestal only to scrutinize him more closely and conclude that it was a mistake to put him up there in the first place.
time years moments
For years I thought my work still lay ahead, and now I find it is behind me: there was no moment when it took place.
silence speech saying-nothing
Sometimes speech is no more than a device for saying nothing - and a neater one than silence.
retirement loss solitude
Retirement revives the sorrow of parting, the feeling of abandonment, solitude and uselessness that is caused by the loss of some beloved person.
communication emotional self
The state of emotional intoxication allows one to grasp existence in one's self and in the other, as both subjectivity and passivity. The two partners merge in this ambiguous unity; each one is freed of his own presence and achieves immediate communication with the other.
christian littles oppression
Christian ideology has contributed no little to the oppression of woman.
christian heaven arrogance
The arrogance of some Christians would close heaven to them if, to their misfortune, it existed.
sacrifice possibility lost
it is true that nothing is gained without something being lost: everyone knows that in fulfilling oneself one necessarily sacrifices some possibilities.