Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.

It is not the courage to be that we must develop as much as the courage to become. We are responsible for our destiny. The meaning of life is not located in some hidden crevice in the womb of nature but is created by free persons, who are aware that they are responsible for their own futures and have the courage to take this project into their own hands.

I think we make our own luck. Our parents give us life, but what we do with that life is our own responsibility.

What we will become depends on us

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.

Human life has no meaning independent of itself. There is no cosmic force or deity to give it meaning or significance. There is no ultimate destiny for man. Such a belief is an illusion of humankind's infancy. The meaning of life is what we choose to give it. Meaning grows out of human purposes alone. Nature provides us with an infinite range of opportunities, but it is only our vision and our action that select and realize those that we desire.

We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.

Success is a personal matter - only you as an individual can tell if you did everything within your power to give your best effort

My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home that's no excuse ... Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

Chiefly the mold of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

You can only do two things with your life: give it away or throw it away.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

Everything you are comes from your choices.

No one can stop you from doing exactly what you want to do. If you can accept that the cavalry won't come, and if you can be the cavalry, it gives you a chance to be happy.

Life has no meaning but what we give it. I wish a few more of ye would give it a little.

It is we ourselves who alone shall shape our destinies, rising always above the external circumstances and conditions which from time to time shall be thrown across our paths.

All that destiny garbage. Nobody can decide what happens to you. Nobody but you.

All men are created equal. It is what you do from there that makes the difference. We are all free agents in life. We make our own decisions. We control our own destiny.

Before you come alive, life is nothing; it 's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.

A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.

In your hands lies the future of your world and the fulfilment of the best qualities of your own spirit.

I spent a lifetime giving my power away, assuming that everybody knew better what was right for me than me. And then there comes a point in your life you go, Oh, wait a second! There's an a-ha moment when you realize that the only person that can delegate your future is you.

If we empower ourselves with responsibility over our actions, responsibility over our destinies and responsibility for directing and maintaining and creating our own ethical and moral frameworks, which is the most important thing really isn’t it because perhaps the greatest insult to humanism is this idea that mankind needs a god in order to have a moral framework.

Of course there’s destiny, but destiny doesn’t push you where you don’t want to go. You’re the ones who choose. Destiny is up to you.