Simone de Beauvoir — Quote from The Second Sex
“To lose confidence in one's body is to lose confidence in oneself.”
The Second Sex (1949)
Concepts: authenticity, freedom, agency
Resonant Quotes
- “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” — Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks These quotes form a dialectical pair about embodied subjectivity under oppression, with Fanon's prayer for critical b...
- “Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need y...” — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving Both explore how authentic selfhood requires moving beyond dependency—Fromm's mature love transcends neediness while ...
- “How can man know himself? He is a thing dark and veiled. The true way that le...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as Educator Both quotes locate authentic self-knowledge in embodied experience—Nietzsche through action that reveals character, B...
- “Existence precedes essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surg...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism De Beauvoir's embodied confidence complements Sartre's existential self-creation by grounding the process of self-def...
- “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is respon...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness De Beauvoir's embodied confidence provides the material foundation necessary for exercising Sartre's radical freedom—...
- “Commitment is an act, not a word.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, What Is Literature? Both existentialists recognize that authentic selfhood requires embodied confidence—Sartre's acted commitment and de ...
- “At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the nati...” — Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth Both thinkers connect bodily experience to psychological liberation, with Fanon's violent reclamation of agency paral...
- “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own Both feminist insights connect authentic selfhood with rejecting external pressures that alienate women from their na...