Life & Wisdom Quote by Simone de Beauvoir

De Beauvoir treats “idols” the way an existentialist treats destiny: as a human fabrication that only looks inevitable once we forget we made it. The line has the cool audacity of demystification. “However terrifying they may be” nods to the psychological truth that our creations can come back wearing the mask of gods, nations, markets, traditions, even “Woman” as a supposedly natural category. Yet the punch is procedural, not inspirational: idols are “subordinate” because they are produced by human hands, language, and consent. Fear is real; the authority isn’t.

The subtext is a warning about bad faith. People outsource responsibility to abstractions precisely because it relieves them of the burden of freedom. If an idol rules you, you can obey without choosing; you can suffer without indicting anyone, including yourself. De Beauvoir refuses that comfort. She insists on the reversibility of power: what is instituted can be dismantled. That’s why the final clause isn’t a pep talk but a demand. “He will always have it in his power” sounds like reassurance until you hear the accusation embedded inside it: if the idol stands, it’s because we keep holding it up.

Context matters. Writing in the long shadow of fascism, war, and entrenched patriarchy, de Beauvoir is naming how collective myths harden into “nature.” Her broader project is to show that oppression often survives by disguising itself as inevitability. The sentence is a lever: it pries open the crack between what terrifies us and what truly transcends us, and it leaves the reader with an uncomfortable, modern task - destroy what you’ve been taught to worship.