“Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this.”

— Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age (1970), Conclusion

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.”

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

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

“Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.”

“Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.”

“No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.”