Simone de Beauvoir — "It is in the knowledge of the human heart that we find the true measure of man."
It is in the knowledge of the human heart that we find the true measure of man.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
"The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it's all that matters."
"There is no way a man can understand a woman, unless he is a woman."
"The greatest danger to freedom is not oppression, but indifference."
"The greatest danger for women is to remain within the domestic sphere."
About Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
French existentialist philosopher whose The Second Sex (1949) is the foundational text of modern feminist theory. Closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (lifetime partner and existentialist co-founder) and Albert Camus (existentialist contemporary in Paris). For an intellectual contrast, see Camille Paglia, American cultural critic and Sexual Personae author — Paglia argues for biological-essentialist roots of gender that Beauvoir's social-construction view — 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — explicitly rejects. The two are the cleanest constructed-vs-essentialist poles in feminist theory.
The standard scholarly entry points to Simone de Beauvoir's work: Toril Moi (Duke, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor) — Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994); Margaret A. Simons (Southern Illinois University, Emerita) — Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999); Kate Kirkpatrick (Oxford, Regent's Park College) — Becoming Beauvoir: A Life (2019). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Simone de Beauvoir.