Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Thoughts on Love, Self and Soul

LOVE

"However this did not give me much comfort; I knew how different we were and I was no longer counting on love to deliver me from loneliness."(*1)

"And to love him genuinely is to love him in his otherness and in that freedom by which he escapes. Love is then renunciation of all possession, of all confusion." (*2)

"The act of love, it seemed, sometimes lasted only a few minutes; sometimes it appeared to be flat and dull, at other times extraordinarily voluptuous; it comprised refinements and variations which remained a complete mystery to me."(*3)

"That is why love authorizes severities which are not granted to indifference."(*4)

"It also happens that the genuine love for adventure is inextricably mixed with an attachment to the value of the serious."(*5)

"Either physical love was identified with love itself, in which case it becomes self-explanatory, or it was a tragic fall from grace, and I hadn't the courage to attempt it."(*6)

"De Beauvoir says, 'women are exploited--and they allow themselves to be exploited--in the name of love."(*7)

"At 18 or 20 you get married for love, and at 30 it all hits you--and getting out of that situation is very, very difficult."(*8)

"Love can be a trap which makes woman put up with a great deal."(*9)

"In fact, sexuality has always gone hand and hand with love for me, except perhaps when I was young."(*10)

"Many friendships between women endure, whereas love fades . . ."(*11)

SELF

'She (de Beauvoir) embodies the existentialist demand that one change from object to subject, refuse to be passive and act in spite of everything, and thus--and at this price--become a human being."(*12)

"I realized that I took people as they were; I didn't suspect them of having any other self than the official; . . ."(*13)

"We, too, define morality by this adhesion to the self; and this is why we say that man can not positively decide betweem the negation and the assumption of his freedom, for as he decides, he assumes it."(*14)

SOUL

"They told my mother that the study of philosophy mortally corrupts the soul: after one year at the Sorbonne, i would lose both my faith and my good standing."(*15)

"Those who have accepted the dualism have established a hierarchy between body and soul which permits of considering as negligible the part of the self which cannot be saved."(*16)

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