Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

I read English better than I speak it.

The study of English has been one of my passions ever since childhood. There’s a body of children’s literature in English far more charming than what exists in French. I loved to read “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” George Eliot, and even Rosamond Lehmann.

Why should we talk about me? Don’t you think I’ve done enough in my three books of memoirs?

Society cares for the individual only insofar as he is profitable.

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.

Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they consute with absolute truth.

Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation.

As I see it, there is not much difference between being sixty-three and fifty-three: whereas when I was fifty-three I felt at a staggering distance from forty-three.

The faculty of imagination is both the rudder and the bridle of the senses.

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.