697 Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

However gifted an individual is at the outset, if his or her talents cannot be developed because of his or her social condition, because of the surrounding circumstances, these talents will be still-born.

The human species is forever in a state of change, forever becoming.

She was trying to get rid of a religious hangover.

She would never change, but one day at the touch of a fingertip she would fall to dust.

She was not to look beyond herself for the meaning of her life.

As long as the family and the myth of the family ... have not been destroyed, women will still be oppressed.

She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.

They [Americans] want to believe that Good and Evil can be defined in precise categories, that Good is already, or will be easily achieved. ... if this optimism appears too superficial, they will try to create a kind of anti-God: the U.S.S.R. That is Evil, and it only needs to be annihilated to re-establish the reign of Good.

From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.