Jean-Paul Sartre famous quotes

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Life #Spiritual #Witty

...I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity...
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Eternity

The aim of language...is to communicate...to impart to others the results one has obtained...As I talk, I reveal the situation...I reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Order #Criticism #Language

Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Men #Purpose #Action

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Atheist #Philosophical #Atheism

We are our choices.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Choices

We must act out passion before we can feel it.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Philosophical #Passion

I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Names #Voice

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Science #Technology

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Lonely #Philosophical #Being Alone

I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Tranquility #Life Death

I felt myself in a solitude so frightful that I contemplated suicide. What held me back was the idea that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Suicide #Ideas #Solitude

We do not judge the people we love.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Love #People #Judging

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think… and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Moments #My Thoughts

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Book #Important #Library

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.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#World #Laziness #Want

I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Heaven #My Smile #Pupils

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Life #Existentialism #Moments

I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Want #Existentialism #Fit

Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Giving #Life Has No Meaning #Humanism

There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Beautiful #May #Chaos

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Mean #Men #Essence

Listen to me: a family man is never a real family man. An assassin is never entirely assassin. They play a role, you understand. While a dead man, he is really dead. To be or not to be, right?
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Real #Men #Play

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

#Nature #Roots #Profound

In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Soccer #Football #Team

It answers the question that was tormenting you: my love, you are not 'one thing in my life' - not even the most important - because my life no longer belongs to me because...you are always me.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Love You #Important #Answers

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Cycling #Realizing #Life Is

There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what?
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Book #Lasts #Shelves

I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Moving #Light #Air

I am. I am, I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think any more, I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I . . . because . . . ugh!
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Ugh #Want

The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions … and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the “divine irresponsibility” of the condemned man.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Suicide #Men #Want

Commitment is an act, not a word.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Commitment #Interesting

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Book #Philosophical #I Have Learned

I do not think therefore I am a moustache
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Moustache

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Freedom #Responsibility #Men

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Mean #Self #Dry

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Attitude #Freedom

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Sky #Silence #Solitude

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Learning #Finding Yourself

Don't you feel the same way? When I cannot see myself, even though I touch myself, I wonder if I really exist.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Way #Existentialism #Wonder

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Would Be

It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophy #Thinking #Complaining

Acting is happy agony.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Agony #Acting

I have such a desire to sleep and am so much behind my sleep. A good night, one good night and all this nonsense will be swept away.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Good Night #Sleep #Desire

Life begins on the other side of despair.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Life #Philosophical

The more one is absorbed in fighting evil, the less one is tempted to place the good in question.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Fighting #Evil #Tempted

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

#Witty #Time #Book

Words are loaded pistols.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thought Provoking #Pistols #Existentialism

Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Rocks #Guy #Rowing

If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Literature #Trouble

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Mirrors #People #No Friends

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Doe #Cry

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Sleep #Water #Tree

Man is what he wills himself to be.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Men #No Exit

I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Solitude #Littles #Purity

Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Silence #Consequence

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Men #Solitude #Absence

There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Fear #Heart #Evil

It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Life #Thinking #Generosity

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Men #Choices

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Judging #Evil

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Soul #Needs

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Men #Interest

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

#Spring #Cutting #Use

Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Cutting #Silence #May

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Responsibility #Might #Existentialism

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Responsibility #Destiny #Men

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Dream #Art #Truth

Once freedom lights its beacon in man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Heart #Men #Light

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Humble #Modesty #Virtue

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Summer #June #Lovely

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Travel #Adventure #Funny Travel

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Existentialism #Existence

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.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Hurt #Pain #Agony

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Death #Existentialism #Stills

Hell is other people at breakfast.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Food #People #Breakfast

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Sex #Character #Endeavor

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.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Waiting #Seduction #Philosopher

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Life #Exercise #Generosity

I hate victims who respect their executioners.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Fake People #Hate #Judging

You take souls for vegetables.... The gardener can decide what will become of his carrots but no one can choose the good of others for them.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Vegetables #Soul #Carrots

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Two #People #Luck

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

#War #Philosophical #Fighting

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Inspirational #Summer #Difficult

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Philosophical #Want #Facts

I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Diaries #Danger

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

#Military #Philosophical #Numbers

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.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Kissing #Eggs #Evil

One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Self #Facts

your judgement judges you and defines you
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Judging #Judgement #Define You

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Thinking #Battle #Lost

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

In love, one and one are one.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Love #Inspirational #True Love

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Graduation #Freedom #Responsibility

You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Suffering #Rhythm

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Birthday #Creating #Race

It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Honesty #Integrity #Character

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Powerful #Philosophical #Thinking

Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Writing #Portraits #Myth

If you die, I will lie down beside you and I will stay there until the end, without eating or drinking, you will rot in my arms and I will love you as carcass: for you love nothing if you do not love everything.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre

#Life #Lying #Drinking