Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946) <br class="br">Context: 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 afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

“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

“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

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

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Source: Nausea

“I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 1
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“I clung to nothing, in a way I was calm. But it was a horrible calm—because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes, I heard with its ears, but it was no longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself and I didn’t recognize it any more.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Wall