Simone de Beauvoir

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

All oppression creates a state of war.

He reflected. 'I know a lot of different kids of people what I want is to show each of them how the others really are. You hear so many lies!

At night I would climb the steps to the Sacre-Coeur, and I would watch Paris, that futile oasis, scintillating in the wilderness of space. I would weep, because it was so beautiful, and because it was so useless.

There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.

If you live long enough you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

Living by proxy is always a precarious expedient.

Let women be provided with living strength of their own.