As long as there have been men, and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers, and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.

— Simone de Beauvoir

At night, I would climb the steps to the Sacred-Coeur, and I would watch Paris, that futile oasis, scintillating in the wilderness of space. I would weep, because it was so beautiful, and because it was so useless.

— Simone de Beauvoir

At the present time there still exist many doctrines which choose to leave in the shadow certain troubling aspects of a too complex situation. But their attempt to lie to us is in vain. Cowardice does not pay. Those reasonable metaphysics, those consoling ethics with which they would like to entice us only accentuate the disorder from which we suffer.

— Simone de Beauvoir

Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms...

— Simone de Beauvoir

A woman's situation, i.e. those meanings derived from the total context in which she comes to maturity, disposes her to apprehend her body not as instrument of her transcendence, but "an object destined for another.

— Simone de Beauvoir

Being on the fringes of the world is not the best place for someone who intends to re-create it: here again, to go beyond the given, one must be deeply rooted in it. Personal accomplishments are almost impossible in human categories collectively kept in an inferior situation.

— Simone de Beauvoir

But an action which wants to serve man ought to be careful not to forget him on the way, if it chooses to fulfill itself blindly, it will lose its meaning or will take on an unforeseen meaning; for the goal is not fixed once & for all; it is defined all along the road which leads up to it.

— Simone de Beauvoir

But I was brought up on convent morals and paternal nationalism, I was getting bogged down in contradictions.

— Simone de Beauvoir

But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.

— Simone de Beauvoir

Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.

— Simone de Beauvoir