"Feminism is one way of attacking society as it now exists."
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Simone de Beauvoir quotes (page 15 of 18)
355 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Anyway I know only too well that all life is nothing but a brief reprieve from death."
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"The body is the instrument of our hold on the world."
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"Writing is a trade ... which is learned by writing."
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"Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me."
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"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."
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"The individuals who seem to us most outstanding, who are honored with the name of genius, are those who have proposed to enact the fate of all humanity in their personal existences."
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"There was a time, in the nineteenth century, for example, when women spoke mostly about the house, children, birth, and so forth, because it was their domain. That's changing a little, now."
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"It's true that this is one of the problems which often arises among my radical, revolutionary feminist friends: Do you have to join the system or not? On the one hand, if you don't, you risk being ineffectual. But if you do, from that moment on, you place your feminism at the service of a system which you want to take apart."
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"I think that feminism permits women to speak among themselves, instead of simply being resentful, having personal complaints, which get them nowhere and which make them sick and ill-tempered, depressive and poison the lives of their husbands and children. It's much better to arrive at a collective consciousness of this problem, which is both a kind of therapy and the basis for a struggle."
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"That a whole part of the middle class detests me... is utterly normal. I would be troubled if the contrary were true."
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"Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else."
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"I willingly trust myself to chance. I let my thoughts wander, I digress, not only sitting at my work, but all day long, all night even. It often happens that a sentence suddenly runs through my head before I go to bed, or when I am unable to sleep, and I get up again and write it down."
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"If the unconscious must express itself it will do so through the work that you do consciously or subconsciously, with words, with what you have to say."
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"There are cases where the slave does not know his servitude and where it is necessary to bring the seed of his liberation to him from the outside: his submission is not enough to justify the tyranny which is imposed upon him."
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"To will freedom and to will to disclose being are one and the same choice; hence, freedom takes a positive and constructive step which causes being to pass to existence in a movement which is constantly surpassed."
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"The writer can't stop her unconscious from showing up, that's certain."
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"It is impossible to do anything for anyone."
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"it is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck."
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"You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do or don't do."
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