Society, being codified by man, decrees that woman is inferior; she can do away with this inferiority only by destroying the male's superiority

The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them

Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying

Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male

One is not born a woman, one becomes one

When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form

In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation

It is easier to think of the world without a creator than of a creator loaded with all the contradictions of the world

Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills