Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.
Simone de BeauvoirIn 1949, I believed that social progress, the triumph of the proletariat, socialism would lead to the emancipation of women. But I saw that nothing came of it: first of all, that socialism was not achieved anywhere, and that in certain countries which called themselves socialist, the situation of women was no better than it was in so-called capitalist countries.
Simone de BeauvoirYou can't address yourself to women by speaking a language which no average woman will understand. In my opinion, it's wrong.
Simone de BeauvoirIt must be said in addition that the men with the most scrupulous respect for embryonic life are also those who are most zealous when it comes to condemning adults to death in war.
Simone de BeauvoirThe father's life is surrounded by mysterious prestige: the hours he spends in the home, the room where he works, the objects around him, his occupations, his habits, have a sacred character. It is he who feeds the family, is the one in charge and the head. Usually he works outside the home, and it is through him that the household communicates with the rest of the world: he is the embodiment of this adventurous, immense, difficult, and marvelous world; he is transcendence, he is God.
Simone de Beauvoir