Simone de Beauvoir on The Cruelty of Society

“Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.”

~Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age, 1970

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French existentialist philosopher. Her The Second Sex is one of the foundational texts of modern philosophy. She was the partner of fellow philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre for nearly 50 years. They remain together today, at least in a manner of speaking:

Tomb photo credit: Evan O’Neil (invisible) from New York, NY, U.S.A. – Flickr