It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills. - Simone de Beauvoir
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. - Simone de Beauvoir
To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself. - Simone de Beauvoir
The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power. - Simone de Beauvoir
I’ve done everything I wanted to do, writing books, learning about things, but I’ve been swindled all the same because it’s never anything more. - Simone de Beauvoir
That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. - Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a woman, one becomes one. - Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius. - Simone de Beauvoir
É completamente estúpido escrever cartas de amor, não pode ser transcrito através de uma simples carta, mas o que fazer quando este horrível oceano nos separa do homem que amamos? - Simone de Beauvoir
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself - Simone de Beauvoir
Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands - two equally harmful disciplines. - Simone de Beauvoir
El día que una mujer pueda no amar con su debilidad sino con su fuerza, no escapar de sí misma sino encontrarse, no humillarse sino afirmarse, ese día el amor será para ella, como para el hombre, fuente de vida y no un peligro mortal". - Simone de Beauvoir
Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen. - Simone de Beauvoir
El hombre se eleva sobre el animal al arriesgar la vida, no al darla, por eso la humanidad acuerda superioridad al sexo que mata y no al que engendra. - Simone de Beauvoir
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion - Simone de Beauvoir
What do you believe in ?""People's sufferings, and the fact that it is abominable. One should do everything to abolish it. To tell you the truth, nothing else seems to me of any importance. - Simone de Beauvoir
Being on the fringes of the world is not the best place for someone who intends to re-create it: here again, to go beyond the given, one must be deeply rooted in it. Personal accomplishments are almost impossible in human categories collectively kept in an inferior situation. - Simone de Beauvoir
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. - Simone de Beauvoir
A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes. - Simone de Beauvoir
[From a New York Times biography from May 27, 2010 entitled Introduction to 's 'The Second Sex']Beauvoir herself was as devout an atheist as she had once been a Catholic, and she dismisses religions — even when they worship a goddess — as the inventions of men to perpetuate their dominion. - Simone de Beauvoir
Si la mujer es prosaica, casera, bajamente utilitaria, se debe a que le imponen que consagre su existencia a preparar alimentos y limpiar deyecciones. No será de ahí de donde podrá extraer el sentido de la grandeza. - Simone de Beauvoir
When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the "division" of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. - Simone de Beauvoir
That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. - Simone de Beauvoir
I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me. - Simone de Beauvoir
But I was brought up on convent morals and paternal nationalism, I was getting bogged down in contradictions. - 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 living. - Simone de Beauvoir