Simone de Beauvoir

France
9 Jan 1908 // 14 Apr 1986
Writer

Texts



The Young Girl (1)

When she does not find love, she may find poetry. Because she does not act, she observes, she feels, she records; a color, a smile awakens profound echoes within her; her destiny is outside her, scat...
The Second Sex

Literature is Truer than Life (2)

"In a way, literature is truer than life," he said to himself. "On paper, you say exactly and completely what you feel. How easy it is to break things off on paper! You hate, you shout, you kill, you...
The Mandarins

We Are Absolutely Free Today (3)

Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact r...
The Ethics of Ambiguity


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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays