Simone de Beauvoir

"Woman is shut up in a kitchen or in a boudoir, and astonishment is expressed that her horizon is limited. Her wings are clipped, and it is found deplorable that she cannot fly. Let but the future be opened to her, and she will no longer be compelled to linger in the present."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"One is not born a woman, one becomes one."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness."

- Simone de Beauvoir

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

- Simone de Beauvoir

"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"One is not born a woman, but becomes one."

- Simone de Beauvoir

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

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Girls are weighed down by restrictions, boys with demands—two equally harmful disciplines."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Happy Wednesday! Change your life today; don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"My studies gave me only a very superficial knowledge of philosophy but sharpened my interest in it. I benefited greatly from being a teacher—that is, from being able to spend a great deal of time reading, writing and educating myself."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Retirement may be looked upon either as a prolonged holiday or as a rejection, a being thrown on to the scrap-heap."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"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."

- Simone de Beauvoir