We remember today Simone de Beauvoir (January 9, 1908–April 14, 1986), thinker of formidable foresight and abiding insight into the human experience. She has explored the osmotic relationship between optimism, pessimism, and hope in the fourth and final volume of her autobiography, “All Said and Done”. A French author and philosopher, she wrote novels, monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography.
“To fight unhappiness one must first expose it, which means that one must dispel the mystifications behind which it is hidden so that people do not have to think about it.”
“Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair,” the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm wrote in 1972 as he made his elegant case for rational faith in the human spirit, adding: “To have faith means to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the limits of the realistically possible.”

“Faith is often an appurtenance that is given in childhood as part of the middle-class equipment, and that is unquestionably retained together with the rest of it. If a doubt arises, it is often thrust aside for emotional reasons, a nostalgic loyalty to the past, affection for those around one, dread of the loneliness and banishment that threaten those who do not conform… Habits of mind, a system of reference and of values have been acquired, and one becomes their prisoner.”

“Faith allows an evasion of those difficulties which the atheist confronts honestly. And to crown all, the believer derives a sense of great superiority from this very cowardice itself.”

“In what colors do I see this Godless world in which I live? Many readers tell me that what they like in my books is my delight in happiness, my love of live — my optimism. But others, particularly when they write to me about my last book, Old Age, deplore my pessimism. Both these labels are oversimplified. … My natural bent certainly does not lead me to suppose that the worst is always inevitable. Yet I am committed to looking reality in the face and speaking about it without pretense… It is just because I loathe unhappiness and because I am not given to foreseeing it that when I do come up against it I am deeply shocked or furiously indignant — I have to communicate my feelings. To fight unhappiness one must first expose it, which means that one must dispel the mystifications behind which it is hidden so that people do not have to think about it. It is because I reject lies and running away that I am accused of pessimism; but this rejection implies hope — the hope that truth may be of use. And this is a more optimistic attitude than the choice of indifference, ignorance or sham.”

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a good way to wrap up your life. what happened to your friends, interesting trips and times. ( )

Dissiper les mystifications, dire la vérité, c'est un des buts que j'ai le plus obstinément pour-suivis à travers mes livres. Cet entêtement a ses racines dans mon enfance; je haïssais ce que nous appelions ma soeur et moi la bêtise » : une manière d'étouffer la vie et ses joies sous des préjugés, des routines, des, faux-semblants, des consignes creuses. J'ai voulu échapper à cette oppression, je me suis promis de la dénoncer.