697 Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

Has my watch stopped? No. But its hands do not seem to be going around. Don’t look at them. Think of something else – anything else: think of yesterday, a calm, ordinary, easy-flowing day, in spite of the nervous tension of waiting.

There is no such thing as maternal “instinct”: the word does not in any case apply to the human species. The mother’s attitude is defined by her total situation and by the way she accepts it.

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.

In the afternoons I would sit out on the balcony outside the dining-room; there, level with the tops of the trees that shaded the boulevard Raspail, I would watch the passers-by.

I’m not against mothers. I am against the ideology which expects every woman to have children, and I’m against the circumstances under which mothers have to have their children.

I asked Isabelle whether she was happy. “I never ask myself, so I suppose the answer is yes.” At all events she likes the moment of waking up. That seems to me a pretty good definition of happiness! It is the same with me: every morning, when I open my eyes, I smile.

Life has made me discover the world as it is, that is, a world of suffering and oppression, of undernourishment for the majority of people, things that I didn’t know when I was young and when I imagined that to discover the world was to discover something beautiful.

In truth, to go for a walk with one’s eyes open is enough to demonstrate that humanity is divided into two classes of individuals whose clothes, faces, bodies, smiles, gaits, interests, and occupations are manifestly different. Perhaps these differences are superficial, perhaps they are destined to disappear. What is certain is that right now they do most obviously exist.

It takes a lot of strength, a lot of pride or a lot of love to believe that what one man does has any importance, or that life can conquer death.