697 Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

It is easier to put people in chains than to remove them if the chains bring prestige, said George Bernard Shaw.

But what does the word insist mean after a whole life of love and understanding? I have never asked anything for myself that I did not also wish for him.

I was too much of an extremist to be able to live under the eye of God and at the same time say both yes and no to life.

I had never believed in the sacred nature of literature. God had died when I was fourteen...

The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted – all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it.

Women’s mutual understanding comes from the fact that they identify themselves with each other; but for the same reason each is against the others.

But I know my only defense is to answer, “I think it because it is true,” thereby eliminating my subjectivity;.

The tie that binds her to her oppressors is unlike any other. The division of the sexes is a biological given, not a moment in human history.

On the contrary, shared destitution makes the conjugal link reciprocal.