Ah, if only there were two of me, she thought, one who spoke and the other who listened, one who lived and one who watched, how I would love myself! I would envy no one.

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.

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.

I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself

One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.

All oppression creates a state of war.

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.

When women act like women, they are accused of being inferior. When women act like human beings, they are accused of behaving like men.

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth - and truth rewarded me.

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[...].

He who dies with the most toys...dies a child.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,

Managing excuses means not excusing yourself from the responsibility you need to take with your thought, words, and actions.

A problem is something you have hopes of changing. Anything else is a fact of life.

There are personalities so powerful that they leave their stamp on any place they inhabit. Their presence is always there, like a spoor, whether or not they themselves are.

I should hate to think that the Senate was as tired of me at the beginning of my service as I am of the Senate at the end.

I am corrupted to the bone with the beauty of this forsaken world.

Imagine what else is true if you understood there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you.

I read books more than I go out.

It is no more easy to make a good picture than it is to find a diamond or a pearl. It means trouble and you risk your life for it.