“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”

— Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963)

About Simone de Beauvoir

1908 – 1986

French existentialist philosopher and author of "The Second Sex".

“There is an element of failure in all success.”

“I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.”

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.”

“Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.”

“They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.”

“Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.”

“The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.”

“Knowledge is not happiness, and science but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.”

“Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.”