Simone de Beauvoir

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

The more she is in love, the more she loses herself; the more he is in love, the more he finds himself.

I am going to die, and I don't know what to do with myself.

No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society must be altered so that women are not dependent on men and so that children are not dependent on women.

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.

If we are to abolish the slavery of women, the first step is to abolish the family.

Old age is a caricature of our former self.

The meaning of life is not to be discovered, but to be created.

She has been taught that it is her duty to please, to be charming, gentle, submissive.

The most important thing for me is to be free, to be myself.

There is an odd kind of pleasure in not being able to understand anything, in being completely at sea.

I know of no other experience more thrilling than to be at the heart of a debate, to be part of the current of ideas.

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.

If you want to be happy, you must be free.

The greatest danger for women is that they are so often brought up to believe that they are inferior to men.

I have always been aware that I am a woman, and that this is a disadvantage.

The most beautiful thing in the world is to be free.

Every man has a right to be free, and every woman has a right to be free.

The fact that she is a woman has been a handicap for her in every respect.