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A Couple Who Go On Living Together Merely Because That Was How They Began, Without Any Other Reason: Was That What We Were Turning Into?
-Simone De Beauvoir
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A Couple Who Go

Simone De Beauvoir
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A Couple Who Go On Living Together Merely Because That Was How They Began, Without Any Other Reason: Was That What We Were Turning Into?

Understanding the Quote: "a couple who go on living together merely because that was how..."

This quote by Simone De Beauvoir reflects deeply on the theme of couple. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Couple, Together, Goes On, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Simone de Beauvoir interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Simone De Beauvoir

Simone De Beauvoir is celebrated for insightful thoughts on couple and together. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Couple
Together
Goes On
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Choice Springs From The Totality Of The Person. Thus, To Study, To Analyze What A Person Is, Does Not Eliminate The Idea Of Freedom.
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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?
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There Are Jobs That Can Be Done Equally Well By Men Or By Women And That Finally You Can't See A Difference. But From The Moment That You Involve Yourself Fully In Writing A Novel, For Example, Or An Essay, Then You Are Involved As A Woman, In The Same Way That You Can't Deny Your Nationality - You Are French, You Are A Man, You Are A Woman... All This Passes Into The Writing.
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The Communists, Following Hegel, Speak Of Humanity And Its Future As Of Some Monolithic Individuality. I Was Attacking This Illusion.
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Obviously, Everything Has Always Been Defined By The Dominant Ideology. But The Dominant Ideology Has Been Able To Accept Women's Literature As Well As Men's Literature. I Would Say That Women Have Been Hindered From Creating For A Variety Of Reasons, As Virginia Woolf So Admirably Explained In A Room Of One's Own. When They Have Created, On The Whole They Have Been Recognized. In Literature It Hasn't Been Nearly As Oppressive As In, Say, Painting, Where Even The Existence Of So Many Women Painters Has Always Been Denied.
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She Was Trying To Get Rid Of A Religious Hangover.
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Retirement May Be Looked Upon Either As A Prolonged Holiday Or As A Rejection, A Being Thrown On To The Scrap-heap.
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Writing Is A Trade ... Which Is Learned By Writing.
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Thinking
Today
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When Women Act Like Women, They Are Accused Of Being Inferior. When Women Act Like Human Beings, They Are Accused Of Behaving Like Men.
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Justice
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Acceptance
Different
Passive
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Sex
Two
Female
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Age
Care
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Men
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Eight
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Eye
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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.
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Style
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Thinking
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Giving
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Lying
Sleep
Dust
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Gay
Men
Heterosexuality Is
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Men
Enjoy
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Mind
Way
Granted
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Doe
Addresses
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Inspirational
Freedom
4th Of July
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Medicine
Numbers
I Am Awfully Greedy; I Want Everything From Life. I Want To Be A Woman And To Be A Man, To Have Many Friends And To Have Loneliness, To Work Much And Write Good Books, To Travel And Enjoy Myself, To Be Selfish And To Be Unselfish… You See, It Is Difficult To Get All Which I Want. And Then When I Do Not Succeed I Get Mad With Anger.
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Work
Loneliness
It Is In Great Part The Anxiety Of Being A Woman That Devastates The Feminine Body.
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Body
Being A Woman
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Tired
Reality
Thinking
In Truth We Need To Change The Society Itself, Men As Well As Women, To Change Everything.
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Needs
Need A Change
Christian Ideology Has Contributed No Little To The Oppression Of Woman.
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Littles
Oppression
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Action
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World
Body
Instruments
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Men
Feminist
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Husband
Struggle
It Is Old Age, Rather Than Death, That Is To Be Contrasted With Life. Old Age Is Life's Parody, Whereas Death Transforms Life Into A Destiny: In A Way It Preserves It By Giving It The Absolute Dimension. Death Does Away With Time.
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Time
Destiny
I Am Incapable Of Conceiving Infinity, And Yet I Do Not Accept Finity. I Want This Adventure That Is The Context Of My Life To Go On Without End.
Adventure
Goes On
Want
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Memories
Sadness
Age
Therefore The Misfortune Which Comes To Man As A Result Of The Fact That He Was A Child Is That His Freedom Was First Concealed From Him And That All His Life He Will Be Nostalgic For The Time When He Did Not Know It's Exigencies.
Children
Men
Firsts
My Life Was Hurrying, Racing Tragically Toward Its End. And Yet At The Same Time It Was Dripping So Slowly, So Very Slowly Now, Hour By Hour, Minute By Minute. One Always Has To Wait Until The Sugar Melts, The Memory Dies, The Wound Scars Over, The Sun Sets, The Unhappiness Lifts And Fades Away.
Memories
Waiting
Racing
Work Almost Always Has A Double Aspect: It Is A Bondage, A Wearisome Drudgery; But It Is Also A Source Of Interest, A Steadying Element, A Factor That Helps To Integrate The Worker With Society. Retirement May Be Looked Upon Either As A Prolonged Holiday Or As A Rejection, A Being Thrown On To The Scrap-heap.
Retirement
Work
Holiday
I Don't Want To Be Just Another Blade Of Grass.
Want
Blades
Grass
Françoise Could Not Help Taking A Surreptitious Glance At Xavière: She Gave A Start Of Amazement. Xavière Was No Longer Watching, Her Head Was Lowered. Françoise Barely Suppressed A Scream. The Girl Was Pressing The Lighted End Against Her Skin, A Bitter Smile Curling Her Lips. It Was An Intimate, Solitary Smile, Like That Of A Half-wit; The Voluptuous, Tortured Smile Of A Woman Possessed Of Some Secret Pleasure.
Girl
Secret
Skins
He Formed His Sentences Hesitantly And Then Threw Them At Me With Such Force That I Felt As If I Were Receiving A Present Each Time
Receiving
Force
Sentences
The Notion Of Ambiguity Must Not Be Confused With That Of Absurdity. To Declare That Existence Is Absurd Is To Deny That It Can Ever Be Given A Meaning; To Say That It Is Ambiguous Is To Assert That Its Meaning Is Never Fixed, That It Must Be Constantly Won. Absurdity Challenges Every Ethics; But Also The Finished Rationalization Of The Real Would Leave No Room For Ethics; It Is Because Man's Condition Is Ambiguous That He Seeks, Through Failure And Outrageousness, To Save His Existence.
Confused
Real
Men
Work Would Be Terribly Boring If One Did Not Play The Game All Out, Passionately.
Work
Games
Play
Americans Are Nature-lovers: But They Only Admit Of Nature Proofed And Corrected By Man.
Nature
Men
United States
I Take On A Shape And An Existence Only If I First Throw Myself Into The World By Loving, By Doing.
World
Shapes
Firsts
No One Is More Arrogant Toward Women, More Aggressive Or Scornful, Than The Man Who Is Anxious About His Virility.
Men
Arrogance
Arrogant
The Nearer I Come To The End Of My Days, The More I Am Enabled To See That Strange Thing, A Life, And To See It Whole.
Strange
Aging
Ends
There Is Something In The New York Air That Makes Sleep Useless.
Travel
New York
Sleep
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.
Ghetto
Thinking
Want
People Seem To Think That If You Keep Your Head Empty You Automatically Fill Your Balls.
Thinking
People
Balls
…but All Day Long I Would Be Training Myself To Think, To Understand, To Criticize, To Know Myself; I Was Seeking For The Absolute Truth: This Preoccupation Did Not Exactly Encourage Polite Conversation.
Thinking
Long
Training
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Earth
I Can
I Admire Freud A Great Deal As A Person And Thinker. Despite Everything, I Find His Work Very, Very Rich, But I Think That For Women He Has Been Absolutely Disastrous. And Even More So, Everyone Who Came After Him.
Thinking
Rich
Admire
The Whole World Was Nothing But An Exile With No Hope Of A Return.
World
Return
No Hope
Many Things Would Be Changed For Americans If They Would Only Admit That There Is Ill-luck In This World And That Misfortune Is Not A Priori A Crime.
Luck
United States
Would Be
Dwelling-place And Food Are Useful For Life But Give It No Significance: The Immediate Goals Of The Housekeeper Are Only Means, Not True Ends.
Mean
Dwelling Place
Giving
Change Your Life Today. Don't Gamble On The Future, Act Now, Without Delay.
Change
Positive
Inspirational Life
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.
Sex
Writing
Mean
There Is A Poetry In Making Preserves; The Housewife Has Caught Duration In The Snare Of Sugar, She Has Enclosed Life In Jars.
Sugar
Duration
Jars
Some Things I Loved Have Vanished. A Great Many Others Have Been Given To Me
Given
Has Beens
One Is Not Born A Genius, One Becomes A Genius; And The Feminine Situation Has Up To The Present Rendered This Becoming Practically Impossible.
Genius
Becoming
Impossible
When I Was A Child, When I Was An Adolescent, Books Saved Me From Despair: That Convinced Me That Culture Was The Highest Of Values[...].
Children
Book
Despair
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.
Fate
Names
Humanity
I Think That Freud Understood Absolutely Nothing About Women - As He Himself Said.
Thinking
Said
Understood
There Is Not A Single Line In This Diary That Does Not Call For A Correction Or A Denial...yes: Throughout These Pages I Meant What I Was Writing And I Meant The Opposite; Reading Them Again I Feel Completely Lost...i Was Lying To Myself. How I Lied To Myself!
Lying
Reading
Writing
A Writer Is Hoisted Up Onto A Pedestal Only To Scrutinize Him More Closely And Conclude That It Was A Mistake To Put Him Up There In The First Place.
Mistake
Pedestal
Firsts
Defending The Truth Is Not Something One Does Out Of A Sense Of Duty Or To Allay Guilt Complexes, But Is A Reward In Itself.
Truth
Guilt
Rewards
If I Were Proud Of Anything In My Life, It Would Be Of Our Love. I Feel We Have To Tell To Each Other As Many Things As We Can, So We Are Not Only Lovers, But The Closest Of Friends At The Same Time.
Would Be
Our Love
Proud
A Couple Who Go On Living Together Merely Because That Was How They Began, Without Any Other Reason: Was That What We Were Turning Into?
Couple
Together
Goes On
I Have Never Read A Really Good Novel Written By A Man Where Women Are Portrayed As They Truly Are. They Can Be Portrayed Externally Very Well - Stendhal's Madame De Renal, For Example - But Only As Seen From The Outside.
Men
Example
Novel
Few Tasks Are More Like The Torture Of Sisyphus Than Housework, With Its Endless Repetition: The Clean Becomes Soiled, The Soiled Is Made Clean, Over And Over, Day After Day.
Tasks
Cleaning
Endless
It's Only Arrogance If You're Wrong.
Arrogance
Ifs
But I Must Admit I Didn´t Like That Idea; Do The Same Thing As Everyone Else. Eating To Live, Living To Eat - That Had Been The Nightmare Of My Adolescence. If It Meant Going Back To That, If Would Be Just As Well To Turn On The Gas At Once. But I Suppose Everyone Thinks Of Things Like That: Let´s Turn On The Gas At Once. And You Don´t Turn It On.
Thinking
Ideas
Would Be
The Time That One Gains Cannot Be Accumulated In A Storehouse; It Is Contradictory To Want To Save Up Existence, Which, The Fact Is, Exists Only By Being Spent And There Is A Good Case For Showing That Airplanes, Machines, The Telephone, And The Radio Do Not Make Men Of Today Happier Than Those Of Former Times.
Airplane
Technology
Men
That's What I Consider True Generosity. You Give Your All, And Yet You Always Feel As If It Costs You Nothing.
Inspirational
Insperational
Generosity
Every Time I Start On A New Book, I Am A Beginner Again. I Doubt Myself, I Grow Discouraged, All The Work Accomplished In The Past Is As Though It Never Was, My First Drafts Are So Shapeless That It Seems Impossible To Go On With The Attempt At All, Right Up Until The Moment - Always Imperceptible, There, Too, There Is A Break - When It Is Has Become Impossible Not To Finish It.
Book
Past
Doubt
Literature Takes Its Revenge On Reality By Making It The Slave Of Fiction.
Revenge
Reality
Fiction
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.
Running
Writing
Sleep
The Point Is Not For Women Simply To Take Power Out Of Men’s Hands, Since That Wouldn’t Change Anything About The World. It’s A Question Precisely Of Destroying That Notion Of Power.
Men
Hands
World
He Reflected. 'i Know A Lot Of Different Kids Of People; What I Want Is To Show Each Of Them How The Others Really Are. You Hear So Many Lies!
Lying
Kids
People
Habit Has A Kind Of Poetry.
Kind
Habit
There Is The Problem Of Unpaid Labor, Such As Housework, Which Represents Millions And Millions Of Unsalaried Work Hours And On Which Masculine Society Is Firmly Based. To Put An End To This Would Be To Send The Present-day Capitalist System Flying In A Single Blow. Only We Can't Do It By Ourselves; There Have To Be Other Kinds Of Attacks On The System. So A Certain Alliance With Revolutionary Systems Is Necessary, Even Masculine Ones.
Blow
Flying
Would Be
To Be Moral Is To Discover Fundamentally Ones Own Being.
Moral
It 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.
War
Men
Adults
The Arrogance Of Some Christians Would Close Heaven To Them If, To Their Misfortune, It Existed.
Christian
Heaven
Arrogance
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.
Kings
Writing
Men
I Would Certainly Like To See Some Young Women Take Up Psychoanalysis Seriously And Reconstruct It From An Absolutely New Viewpoint.
Viewpoints
Young
Young Women
Self-knowledge Is No Guarantee Of Happiness, But It Is On The Side Of Happiness And Can Supply The Courage To Fight For It.
Fighting
Self
Guarantees
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.
Fate
Civilization
Males
Indeed, There Is Nothing More Arbitrary Than Intervening As A Stranger In A Destiny Which Is Not Ours.
Destiny
Arbitrary
Existential
Si L'on Vit Assez Longtemps, On Voit Que Toute Victoire Se Change Un Jour En De Faite. If You Live Long Enough, You'll Find That Every Victory Turns Into A Defeat.
Long
Victory
Defeat
Society Turns Away From The Aged Worker As Though He Belonged To Another Species. That Is Why The Whole Question Is Buried In A Conspiracy Of Silence. Old Age Exposes The Failure Of Our Entire Civilization.
Civilization
Silence
Age
It Is In The Knowledge Of The Genuine Conditions Of Our Lives That We Must Draw Our Strength To Live And Our Reasons For Living.
Life
Positive
Reason
From One Minute To The Next The Present Is Merely An Honorary Past. It Must Be Filled Unceasingly Anew To Dissemble The Curse It Carries Within Itself; That Is Why Americans Like Speed, Alcohol, Thriller Films And Any Sensational News: The Demand For New Things, And Ever Newer Things, Is Feverish Since Nowhere Will They Rest.
Past
Alcohol
United States
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.
Insane
Doe
Would Be
The Writer Can't Stop Her Unconscious From Showing Up, That's Certain.
Showing Up
Certain
Unconscious
Literature Is Always What The Dominant Ideology Recognizes As Literature.
Literature
Ideology
Dominant
Ce N'est Gue' Re Que Dans Les Asiles Que Les Coquettes Gardent Avec Ente" Tement Une Foi Entie' Re En Des Regards Absents; Normalement, Elles Re Clament Des Te Moins. Women Fond Of Dress Are Hardly Ever Entirely Satisfied Not To Be Seen, Except Among The Insane; Usually They Want Witnesses.
Insane
Dresses
Coquette
Why Does One Exist? That's Not My Problem. One Does Exist. The Thing To Do Is To Take No Notice But Go At It On The Run And To Keep On Going Right On Until You Die.
Running
Doe
Problem
In The Face Of An Obstacle Which Is Impossible To Overcome, Stubbornness Is Stupid.
Stupid
Overcoming
Stubborn
Each Of Us Is Responsible For Everything And To Every Human Being.
Responsible
Humans
Human Beings
A Freedom Which Is Interested Only In Denying Freedom Must Be Denied. And It Is Not True That The Recognition Of The Freedom Of Others Limits My Own Freedom: To Be Free Is Not To Have The Power To Do Anything You Like; It Is To Be Able To Surpass The Given Toward An Open Future; The Existence Of Others As A Freedom Defines My Situation And Is Even The Condition Of My Own Freedom. I Am Oppressed If I Am Thrown Into Prison, But Not If I Am Kept From Throwing My Neighbor Into Prison.
Able
Limits
Recognition
Old Age Is Better For Women Than For Men. First Of All, They Have Less Far To Fall, Since Their Lives Are More Mediocre Than Those Of Most Men.
Fall
Men
Age
Oppression Tries To Defend Itself By Its Utility. But We Have Seen That It Is One Of The Lies Of The Serious Mind To Attempt To Give The Word "useful" An Absolute Meaning; Nothing Is Useful If It Is Not Useful To Man; Nothing Is Useful To Man If The Latter Is Not In A Position To Define His Own Ends And Values, If He Is Not Free.
Lying
Men
Giving
Society, Being Codified By Man, Decrees That Woman Is Inferior; She Can Do Away With This Inferiority Only By Destroying The Male's Superiority.
Men
Inferiority
Males
She Would Never Change, But One Day At The Touch Of A Fingertip She Would Fall To Dust.
Fall
Dust
One Day
If You Are Truly On The Left, If You Reject Ideas Of Power And Hierarchy, What You Want Is Equality. Otherwise, It Won't Work At All.
Ideas
Want
Hierarchy
I Cannot Be Angry At God, In Whom I Do Not Believe.
Atheist
Believe
Positive Atheism
I Believe That We Must Use Language. If It Is Used In A Feminist Perspective, With A Feminist Sensibility, Language Will Find Itself Changed In A Feminist Manner. It Will Nonetheless Be The Language. You Can't Not Use This Universal Instrument; You Can't Create An Artificial Language, In My Opinion. But Naturally, Each Writer Must Use It In His/her Own Way.
Believe
Perspective
Feminist
The Body Is Not A Thing, It Is A Situation: It Is Our Grasp On The World And Our Sketch Of Our Project
World
Body
Projects
Whatever The Country, Capitalist Or Socialist, Man Was Everywhere Crushed By Technology, Made A Stranger To His Own Work, Imprisoned, Forced Into Stupidity.
Country
Technology
Men
Every Time A Man Dies, A Child Dies Too, And An Adolescent And A Young Man As Well; Everyone Weeps For The One Who Was Dear To Him.
Children
Men
Young
The Individual Is Defined Only By His Relationship To The World And To Other Individuals; He Exists Only By Transcending Himself, And His Freedom Can Be Achieved Only Through The Freedom Of Others. He Justifies His Existence By A Movement Which, Like Freedom, Springs From His Heart But Which Leads Outside Of Himself.
Spring
Heart
Movement
Truthfully Speaking, Women Are Dangerous, Even Those Who Aren't Feminists, Because There Has Always Been A Women's Revolt. Only It Has Usually Translated Itself Into Solitary, Individualist, Disagreeable Manifestations - The Whole History Of The Taming Of The Shrew, The Woman-shrew. They Weren't Shrews Without Cause.
Feminist
Taming
Shrews
Justice Can Never Be Done In The Midst Of Injustice.
Justice
Done
Injustice
Each Person Has His Or Her Own Very Particular History And After All, The Unconscious Is The Most Secret Part Of Ourselves.
Secret
Unconscious
Persons
A Life Is Such A Strange Object, At One Moment Translucent, At Another Utterly Opaque, An Object I Make With My Own Hands, An Object Imposed On Me, An Object For Which The World Provides The Raw Material And Then Steals It From Me Again, Pulverized By Events, Scattered, Broken, Scored Yet Retaining Its Unity; How Heavy It Is And How Inconsistent: This Contradiction Breeds Many Misunderstandings.
Hands
Broken
Unity
To Be Oneself, Simply Oneself, Is So Amazing And Utterly Unique An Experience That It's Hard To Convince Oneself So Singular A Thing Happens To Everybody.
Unique
Convince
Happens
Men Create Their Own Gods And Thus Have Some Slight Understanding That They Are Self-fabricated. Women Are Much More Susceptible, Because They Are Completely Oppressed By Men; They Take Men At Their Word And Believe In The Gods That Men Have Made Up. The Situation Of Women, Their Culture, Makes Them Kneel More Often Before The Gods That Have Been Created By Men Than Men Themselves Do, Who Know What They've Done. To This Extent, Women Will Be More Fanatical, Whether It Is For Fascism Or For Totalitarianism.
Believe
Men
Self
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