Jean Paul Sartre Quotes

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321 Thought-Provoking Quotes on Individuality, Existence, and Life

“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.”

“I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.”

“Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up; I forget them almost immediately.”

“We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.”

“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.”

“You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm.”

“I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”

“Existence is an imperfection.”

“People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. I have no friends. Is that why my flesh is so naked?”

“Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.”

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

“Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.”

“Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does.”

“One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.”

“As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.”

“I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.”

“You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it.”

“I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.”

“Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea.”

“Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm.”

“The individual's duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person.”

“Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it 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?”

“Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

“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.”

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

“your judgement judges you and defines you”

“I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences.”

“If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.”

“It is only in our decisions that we are important.”

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

“Life is a useless passion.”

“I said to myself, 'I want to die decently'.”

“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.”

“Existence is prior to essence.”

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

“I am myself and I am here.”

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

“I confused things with their names: that is belief.”

“I do not think therefore I am a moustache”

“He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end.”

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

“I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.”

“Death is a continuation of my life without me…”

“I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.”

“An individual chooses and makes himself.”

“I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.”

“Once freedom lights its beacon in man's heart, the gods are powerless against him.”

“Nothingness haunts being.”