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

— Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex (1949)

On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

Original text (French)

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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)

Society cares about the individual only in so far as he is profitable. The young know this. Their anxiety as they enter in upon social life matches the anguish of the old as they are excluded from it.

The Coming of Age (1970)

All Simone de Beauvoir quotes →

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There is a Lady sweet and kind,
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To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.

Mahatma Gandhi

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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.