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Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

Writer

Simone de Beauvoir was a French writer, philosopher, feminist, and social activist. Known for her profound philosophical thoughts and her advocacy for women's status, she is one of the most influential female thinkers of the 20th century. Her works spanned various genres, including novels, philosophical essays, plays, and memoirs, with her most famous work being 'The Second Sex'.

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All Men Ifs Feminism World Thinking Writing Existence Women Humans Way Existentialism Want Doe Knows Children Feminine Made Situation Age Existential

Famous Simone de Beauvoir Quotes

“Patience is one of those feminine qualities which have their origin in our oppression but should be preserved after our liberation.”

Should Quality Oppression Liberation Feminine

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“It is in great part the anxiety of being a woman that devastates the feminine body.”

Body Anxiety Feminine Being A Woman

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.”

Humans Whole Born Fate Economic Figures Produce Civilization Creatures Female Males Determine Psychological Feminine Eunuchs

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“There is something false in this search for a purely feminine writing style. Language, such as it is, is inherited from a masculine society, and it contains many male prejudices. We must rid language of all that. Still, a language is not something created artificially; the proletariat can't use a different language from the bourgeoisie, even if they use it differently, even if from time to time they invent something, technical words or even a kind of worker's slang, which can be very beautiful and very rich. Women can do that as well, enrich their language, clean it up.”

“To create a language all of a piece which would be a women's language, that I find quite insane. There does not exist a mathematics which is only a women's mathematics, or a feminine science.”

Doe Would Be Language Pieces Mathematics Insane Feminine

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“I consider it almost antifeminist to say that there is a feminine nature which expresses itself differently, that a woman speaks her body more than a man, because after all, men also speak their bodies when they write. Everything is implicated in the work of a writer.”

Men Writing Body Speak Feminine

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“There is a kind of universality in the human condition, masculine or feminine. That's one thing I continue to believe.”

Believe Humans Kind One Thing Conditions Feminine Human Condition Masculine Universality

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“Can one say that there is a way of crying out, of speaking, which is properly feminine? Personally, I don't think so. In the end, I find this is another way of putting women in a kind of singularity, a ghetto, which is not what I want. I want them to be singular and universal at the same time.”

Thinking Way Want Kind Ends Cry Universal Feminine Another Way Ghetto Singularity

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“Virginia Woolf thought a lot about her own sex when she wrote. In the best sense of the word, her writing is very feminine, and by that I mean that women are supposed to be very sensitive to all the sensations of nature, much more so than men, much more contemplative. It's this quality that marks her best works.”

Men Writing Mean Sex Quality Mark Supposed To Be Sensitive Feminine Sensations Best Work Virginia Contemplative Woolf

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“Anais Nin shows an occasional grace in writing, but her work is quite foreign to me, precisely because she wants so much to be feminine and not feminist. And then she is so gaga before so many men. She talks about men I know in France, men who were less than nothing, and she considers them kings, extraordinary people.”

People Knows Men Want Writing Shows Grace Kings Extraordinary Feminist France Feminine Ordinary People Occasional Gaga

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.”

Born Situation Impossible Genius Becoming Feminine

Book:The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion”

Ifs Made Issues Males Absurd Made It Discussion Arrogance Feminine

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“If her functioning as a female is not enough to define woman, if we decline also to explain her through "the eternal feminine," and if nevertheless we admit, provisionally, that women do exist, then we must face the question: what is a woman?”

Ifs Enough Faces Eternal Female Eternity Feminine Decline Nevertheless

Book:Nature of the second sex

Source: Nature of the second sex

About the Author

Born: January 9, 1908
Died: April 14, 1986
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 491

Books & Sources

The Second SexRelated source material

The Woman DestroyedRelated source material

The Ethics of AmbiguityRelated source material

Memoirs of a Dutiful DaughterRelated source material

The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of ExistentialismRelated source material

A Very Easy DeathRelated source material

Les Belles ImagesRelated source material

La vieillesseRelated source material

Quando tutte le donne del mondo...Related source material

The prime of lifeRelated source material

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