Quotes About Self-discovery

I feel something troubling inside of me which scares me, an exhausting violence. But I accept the great adventure of being me.

It was an odd experience, this bringing to life of pages born of my pen and forgotten. From time to time they interested me -- they surprised me as much as if someone else had written them; yet I recognized the vocabulary, the shape of the sentences, the drive, the elliptical forms, the mannerisms. These pages were soaked through and through with my self -- there was a sickening intimacy about it, like the smell of a bedroom in which one has been shut up too long.

El día que una mujer pueda no amar con su debilidad sino con su fuerza, no escapar de sí misma sino encontrarse, no humillarse sino afirmarse, ese día el amor será para ella, como para el hombre, fuente de vida y no un peligro mortal.

No dia em que for possível à mulher amar na totalidade, não na sua fraqueza, não para fugir de si mesma mas para se encontrar, não para se demitir mas para se afirmar, nesse dia o amor tornar-se-á para ela, como para o homem, fonte de vida e não perigo mortal

Je sens en moi quelque chose de trouble qui me fait peur, une violence qui m'épuise. Mais j'accepte la grande aventure d'être moi.

Men's economic privilege, their social value, the prestige of marriage, the usefulness of masculine support—all these encourage women to ardently want to please men. They are on the whole still in a state of serfdom. It follows that woman knows and chooses herself not as she exists for herself but as man defines her. She thus has to be described first as men dream of her since her being-for-men is one of the essential factors of her concrete condition.

Existence asserts itself as an absolute which must seek its justification within itself and not suppress itself. To attain this truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.

One understands now the drama that rends the adolescent girl at puberty: she cannot become "a grown-up" without accepting her femininity

Ženama se ne ra?amo, nego postajemo

but there was one book in which I believed I had caught a glimpse of my future self: Little Women, by Louisa M. Alcott.

The fact that she accomplishes nothing, that she is nothing, will make her impulses only the more passionate. Empty and unlimited, she seeks from within her nothingness to attain All.

Ya había sentido eso antes, como esta noche, que su ser se disolvía en provecho de seres inaccesibles, pero nunca había visto con una lucidez tan perfecta su propio aniquilamiento.

If woman discovers herself as the inessential and never turns into the essential, it is because she does not bring about this transformation herself.

human transcendence must cope with the same problem: it has to found itself, though it is prohibited from ever fulfilling itself.

The day when it will be possible for the woman to love in her strength and not in her weakness, not to escape from herself but to find herself, not out of resignation but to affirm herself, love will become for her as for man the source of life and not a mortal danger.

Tel était le sens de ma vocation ~adulte, je reprendrais en main mon enfance et j'en ferais un chef-d'oeuvre sans faille.

Para saber lo que es mío, es necesario saber lo que hago verdaderamente.

of course, from birth to puberty the little girl grew up, but she never felt growth

Existia um livro que eu acreditava ter me feito vislumbrar quem seria no futuro: Mulherzinhas, de Louisa May Alcott

Împingând la paroxism viaÅ£a auster? care-mi fusese h?r?zit?, am transformat-o în vocaÅ£ie; am convertit privaÅ£iunea de pl?ceri în ascez?; în loc s? m? târ?sc de la o zi la alta, într-o plictisitoare uniformitate, mi-o luasem mie îns?mi înainte, mut?, cu privirea fix?, îndreptându-m? c?tre o Å£int? ascuns?.

Mi ero voluta senza limiti ed ero informe come l'infinito. La cosa paradossale è che mi accorsi di questa deficienza proprio nel momento in cui scoprivo la mia individualità: la mia pretesa al'universale fin allora mi era apparsa ovvi, e invece, ecco che diveniva un tratto di carattere. Simone si interessa di tutto. Mi trovavo delimitata dal mio rifiuto dei limiti.

No dia que for possível à mulher amar em sua força e não em sua fraqueza, não para fugir de si mesma, mas para se encontrar, não para se renunciar, mas para se afirmar, nesse dia o amor tornar-se-á para ela, como para o homem, fonte de vida e não perigo mortal.

To want to prohibit a man from error is to forbid him to fulfill his own existence, it is to deprive him of life.

If men were content to love a peer instead of a slave — as indeed some men do who are without either arrogance or an inferiority complex — then women would be far less obsessed with their femininity; they would become more natural and simple and would easily rediscover themselves as women, which, after all, they are.