Jean-Paul Sartre quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre on Wise Famous Quotes.

Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes.

From time to time I yawn so widely that tears roll down my cheek.

To keep hope alive one must, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of the socialist camp.

Outside nature, against nature, without excuse, beyond remedy, except what remedy I find within myself.

A doll with skin like that isn't going to mess it up with a revolver shot. [ ... ] Revolvers are meant for crocodile-skins like ours.

So I was a poodle of the future; I made prophecies.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

If God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour.

I am myself and I am here.

People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want
to vomit - and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea

There is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving.

what summits would I not reach if my own life made the subject of the melody.

Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is.

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking.

Imagination is not an empirical or superadded power of consciousness, it is the whole of consciousness as it realizes its freedom.

A right is nothing more than the other aspect of duty.

It is always more valuable to report the truth.

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.

Have the courage to read this book, for in the first place it will make you ashamed, and shame, as Marx said, is a revolutionary sentiment.

It isn't freedom from. It's freedom to.

Our job as a writer is to represent the world and to bear witness to it.

It's strange. I felt less lonely when I didn't know you.

Absurd, irreducible; nothing
not even a profound and secret delirium of nature
could explain [a tree root].

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

In love, one and one are one.

M. de Rollebon was my partner; he needed me in order to exist and I needed him so as not to feel my existence.

We are our choices.

For common minds have an ugly ability to perceive in the deepest and richest saying nothing but their own everyday opinion.

There it is: I am gently slipping into the water's depths, towards fear.

The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being.

one cannot hate a man more than one can love him." The

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

What a torment it is not to be rich! It gets one into such abject situations.

To exist is to create your own life.

All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other.

It is meaningless that we are born, it is meaningless that we die.

Emotion is first of all and in principle an accident

Her smiles, her mimicries, all the words she uttered were addressed to herself through him.

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.

Can you justify your existence then?

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.

I am free,' he said suddenly. And his joy changed, on the spot, to a crushing sense of anguish.

It is the same: a chosen one is a man whom God's finger crushes against the wall.

For a moment I wondered if I were not going to
love humanity. But, after all, it was their Sunday, not mine.

What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death.

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.

At the same time, I learned that you always lose. Only the rascals think they win.

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way.

I am responsible for everything ... except my very responsibility.

Death is a continuation of my life without me...

Happiness is not doing what you want but wanting what you do.

Uncalled-for aggression arouses the hatred of the civilian population ...

To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe.

Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended it achieves significance only through its death.

I found everything perfectly clear, and I really understood absolutely nothing.

There is no reality exception in action.

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself

When you want to understand something you stand in front of it, alone, without help: all the past in the world is of no use.

People are like dice. We throw ourselves in the direction of our own choosing.

To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head

I admire the way we can lie, putting reason on our side.

Existence is prior to essence.

Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse.

People are like dice, you throw yourself in the direction of your own choosing ...

...I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity...

Every human endeavor, however singular it seems, involves the whole human race.

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

What we might call everyday morality is exclusive of ethical anguish.

So you realized that there were always women in tears, or a red-headed man, or something else to spoil your effects?"

"Yes, naturally.

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.

What people would like is that a coward or a hero be born that way.

A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.

I must wash myself clean with abstract thoughts, transparent as water.

Sometimes the truth is too simple for intellectuals.

Man is free rather than man is freedom.

For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously.

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it's the poor [and politically weak] who die.

Much more likely you'll hurt me. Still what does it matter? If I've got to suffer, it may as well be at your hands, your pretty hands.

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!

I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing.

I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it's urgency ...

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's
a second nature with me - and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely.

In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.

Nothingness haunts Being.

Existence is an imperfection.

What never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there.

Then time started flowing again and the emptiness grew larger.

We are in hell, my dear, there is never a mistake and people are not damned for nothing.

I confused things with their names: that is belief.

Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.

Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.

All-powerful god, who am I but the fear that I inspire in others?

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

What I see is teeming cohesion, contained dispersal ... For him, to sculpt is to take the fat off space.