Simone de Beauvoir — "Man is a creature of flesh and bone, but also of ideas and dreams."
Man is a creature of flesh and bone, but also of ideas and dreams.
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More from Simone de Beauvoir
"In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid."
"I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth—and truth rewarded me."
"The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it's all that matters."
"She was not born to be a wife, nor a mother, nor anything but herself."
"Man is defined as a being that is free."
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.