In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid. ", Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You have to start from where you are today and from what can be done. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”, “Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise." The young girl throws herself into things with ardor, because she is not yet deprived of her transcendence; and the fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. 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. No one knows me or loves me completely. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. . Book by Simone de Beauvoir, 1972. If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat. I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. 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 have only myself', 'I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.”, “Change your life today. 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. That's not my problem. Women can go to work on these as well without giving up their feminism. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”, “One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others.”, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”, “When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair: that convinced me that culture was the highest of values[...].”, “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.”, “That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”, “A man attaches himself to woman -- not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself. “The Ethics of Ambiguity”, p.47, Open Road Media. Whatever the country, capitalist or socialist, man was everywhere crushed by technology, made a stranger to his own work, imprisoned, forced into stupidity. "All Said and Done". To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future. Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine. “The prime of life”. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power. "Change your life today. "Change your life today. It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Society should be totally different. No one knows me or loves me completely. I tried to love you less.I couldn't. . . She rarely feels a bold creativeness, and usually she lacks the technique of self-expression; but in her conversation, her letters, her literary essays, her sketches, she manifests an original sensitivity. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior. “I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me. The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women. Why does one exist? Change your life today. To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized. As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed. To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. A child blown up by age. To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay." 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. One does exist. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of. When women act like women, they are accused of being inferior. When women act like human beings, they are accused of behaving like men. The evil all arose from the fact that he had increased his needs rather than limited them; . 12-21), June 14, 1975. No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Sex pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken. It was odd. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay. Best Quotes One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. “The Coming of Age”, Simone de Beauvoir (1953). Every day we present the best quotes! "One's life has value so long as one..." 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. To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist to him also; mutually recognizing each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other another. I mistook the way.”, “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”, “If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”, “The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project”, “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 absolute truth.”, “Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable. I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me. Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death. 791 quotes from Simone de Beauvoir: 'I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. “The second sex”, Vintage, Alice Schwarzer, Simone de Beauvoir (1984). “The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism”, p.116, Open Road Media, Simone de Beauvoir (2011). Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scattered in cities already built, on the faces of men already marked by life, she makes contact, she relishes with passion and yet in a manner more detached, more free, than that of a young man. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen. Share Simone de Beauvoir quotations about writing, age and children. This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate. “The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism”, p.102, Open Road Media, Simone de Beauvoir (1968). One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. Discover Simone de Beauvoir famous and rare quotes. 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. The writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels.