Beauvoir Quotes

“To me it seems that too many young women of this time share the same creed. 'Live, laugh, love, be nothing but happy, experience everything, et cetera et cetera.' How monotonous, how useless this becomes. What about the honors of Joan of Arc, Beauvoir, Stowe, Xena, Princess Leia, or women that would truly fight for something other than just their own emotions?”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“The validity of the cook's work is to be found only in the mouths of those at her table; she needs their approbation, demands that they appreciate her dishes and call for second helpings; she is upset if they are not hungry, to the point that one wonders whether the fried potatoes are for her husband or her husband for the fried potatoes.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“Porque não contestam as mulheres a soberania do macho? Nenhum sujeito se coloca imediata e espontaneamente como não essencial; não é o Outro que, definindo-se como Outro, define o Um; ele é posto como Outro pelo Um definindo-se como Um. Mas para que o Outro não se transforme no Um é preciso que se sujeite a esse ponto de vista alheio. De onde vem essa submissão na mulher?”
― Simone Beauvoir

“When a young sixteen-year old Nazi died crying, “Heil Hitler!” he was not guilty, and it was not he whom we hated but his masters. The desirable thing would be to re-educate this misled youth; it would be necessary to expose the mystification and to put the men who are its victims in the presence of their freedom. But the urgency of the struggle forbids this slow labor. We are obliged to destroy not only the oppressor but also those who serve him, whether they do so out of ignorance or out of constraint.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

“«No hay que creer en el Príncipe Azul. Los hombres no son más que unos pobres seres.» No parecerían enanos si no se les pidiera que fuesen gigantes.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“While limerence has been called love, it is not love. Although the limerent feels a kind of love for LO at the time, from LO’s point of view limerence and love are quite different from each other.
It is limerence, not love, that increases when lovers are able to meet only infrequently or when there is anger between them. No wonder those who view limerence from an external vantage are baffled by what seems more a form of insanity than a form of love. Jean-Paul Sartre calls it a project with a “contradictory ideal.” He notes that each of the lovers seek the love of the other without realizing that what they want is to be loved. His conclusion is that the amorous relation is “a system of infinite reflections, a deceiving mirror game which carries within itself its own frustration,” a kind of “dupery.”
It should also be clear now that limerent uncertainly as well as projection can be viewed as the consequence of your limerent inclination to hide your own feelings: If you hide your true reactions, then LO, if indeed limerent, can be expected to do the same. When LO appears not to be eager, or even interested, it is not unreasonable to interpret that behavior as evidence itself of limerence; and a kind of “paranoia” becomes an entirely logical consequence of a situation that may indeed be what Simone de Beauvoir has called it: “impossible.”
Because one of the invariant characteristics of limerence is extreme emotional dependency on LO’s behavior, the actual course of the limerence must depend on the actions and reactions of both lovers. Uncertainty increases limerence; increased limerence dictates altered action which serves to increase or decrease limerence in the other according to the interpretation given. The interplay is delicate if the relationship hovers near mutuality; a subtle imbalance, constantly shifting, appears to maintain it. Each knows who “loves more.”
If limerence were measurable by an instrument that enabled its intensity to be read by the points on a dial, one could imagine that, if lovers sat together reading each other’s degree of reciprocation, the dials would rarely if ever set themselves at the same point on the scales. For instance, if you found yourself more limerent than your partner, then your limerence might decline through reduced hope, or if your partner’s were higher, it might decline through reduced uncertainty. Perhaps such true awareness would provide a means of controlling the reaction.”
― Dorothy Tennov, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love

“No woman before her had written publicly, with greater candor or less euphemism, about the most intimate secrets of her sex. One of those secrets- the hardest, perhaps, for Beauvoir to avow- is that a free woman may refuse to be owned without wanting to renounce, or being able to transcend, her yearning to be possessed”
― Judith Thurman- introduction to The Second Sex

“Jeez,' said Beauvoir. 'The Inquisition. I didn't expect that.'

'No one does,' said Gamache.”
― Louise Penny, The Beautiful Mystery

“Gamache put his hand on Beauvoir's arm to stop him. 'Clara's in charge. She knows what she's doing.'

'She once ate potpourri thinking it was chips.' said Jean-Guy. 'She took a bath in soup, thinking it was bath salts. She turned a vacuum cleaner into a sculpture. She has no idea what she's doing.'

Gamache smiled. 'At least if it all goes south, we have someone else to blame for once.'

'YOU do,' mumbled Beauvoir, tossing his bag into the back of the van. 'I always blamed you anyway. I'm no further ahead.”
― Louise Penny, The Long Way Home

“But Castor, why have you stopped thinking, why aren't you working? I thought you wanted to write? You don't want to become a housewife, do you?”
― Jean Paul Sartre