1908–1986 · French existentialist philosopher, writer & feminist
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, novelist and feminist theorist, best known for The Second Sex (1949) and the memoir Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958). Her real writing is dense, analytical French prose about freedom, ambiguity and the situation of women — nothing like a rhyming self-help slogan. Because her name carries philosophical authority, it has become a magnet for feel-good lines she never wrote, of which this is one.