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It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.

— Simone de Beauvoir Le deuxiéme sexe (1949)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Tr. H. M. Parshley, The Second Sex (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), p. 64

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Women

More quotes by Simone de Beauvoir

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.

All Said and Done (1972)

Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.

Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963)

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

The Blood of Others [Le sang des autres (1946)

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

The Second Sex (1949)

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

The Second Sex (1949)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Simone de Beauvoir (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.