{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/it-is-vain", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/it-is-vain.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/it-is-vain.md", "id": "6de6edad-a6a2-4f3d-87e0-3a1452a00b58", "slug": "it-is-vain", "text": "It is vain to apportion praise and blame. The truth is that if the vicious circle is so hard to break, it is because the two sexes are each the victim at once of the other and of itself. Between two adversaries confronting each other in their pure liberty, an agreement could be easily reached: the more so as the war profits neither. But the complexity of the whole affair derives from the fact that each camp is giving aid and comfort to the enemy; woman is pursuing a dream of submission, man a dream of identification. Want of authenticity does not pay: each blames the other for the unhappiness he or she has incurred in yielding to the temptations of the easy way; what man and woman loathe in each other is the shattering frustration of each one's own bad faith and baseness.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Simone de Beauvoir", "slug": "simone-de-beauvoir", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir" }, "book": { "title": "The Second Sex", "slug": "the-second-sex", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "women", "slug": "women", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women" }, { "name": "men", "slug": "men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/men" }, { "name": "authenticity", "slug": "authenticity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/authenticity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#The_Second_Sex_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:52", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "dad8ba5f-ee1a-4fb5-8310-e157062e521a", "slug": "one-is-not-born", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/one-is-not-born", "text": "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": 267, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "women", "slug": "women", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women" }, { "name": "identity", "slug": "identity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/identity" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#The_Second_Sex_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T08:10:02" }, { "id": "f4a8853c-0ec4-4fb4-acdd-258a376ac14b", "slug": "the-fact-that", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/the-fact-that", "text": "The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another; it is never the given that confers superiorities: \"virtue\", as the ancients called it, is defined at the level of \"that which depends on us\". In both sexes is played out the same drama of the flesh and the spirit, of finitude and transcendence; both are gnawed away by time and laid in wait for by death, they have the same essential need for one another; and they can gain from their liberty the same glory. If they were to taste it, they would no longer be tempted to dispute fallacious privileges, and fraternity between them could then come into existence.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "freedom", "slug": "freedom", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/freedom" }, { "name": "human nature", "slug": "human-nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature" }, { "name": "equality", "slug": "equality", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/equality" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#The_Second_Sex_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:52" }, { "id": "d6206c32-8363-49d7-82e5-f02642362c2c", "slug": "the-humanity-of-tomorrow", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/simone-de-beauvoir/the-second-sex/the-humanity-of-tomorrow", "text": "The humanity of tomorrow will be living in its flesh and in its conscious liberty; that time will be its present and it will in turn prefer it. New relations of flesh and sentiment of which we have no conception will arise between the sexes; already, indeed, there have appeared between men and women friendships, rivalries, complicities, comradeships — chaste or sensual — which past centuries could not have conceived.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "women", "slug": "women", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/women" }, { "name": "the future", "slug": "the-future", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-future" }, { "name": "men", "slug": "men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/men" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#The_Second_Sex_(1949)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:52" } ] }