Simone de Beauvoir

The Blood of Others

Marion

When I used the word 'revolution' to her, she flushed, You're only a child! You don't know what you're saying!" I tried to argue but she stopped me, her body shaken with passionate horror. It was senseless to try to change anything in the world or in life: things were bad enough, even if one did not meddle with them.

Everything that her heart and her mind condemned she rapidly defended - my father, marriage, capitalism. Because the wrong lay not in the institutions, but in the depths of our being, we must huddle in a corner and make ourselves as small as possible.

Better to accept everything, than to make an abortive effort, doomed in advance to failure! That prudence!

The Blood of Others quotes

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