1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Jean Paul Sartre

Jean Paul Sartre Quotes
page 5
321 Thought-Provoking Quotes on Individuality, Existence, and Life

Discover the profound wisdom of Jean Paul Sartre through a collection of thought-provoking quotes. From the importance of individuality and self-determination to the complexities of human existence, delve into the mind of this influential philosopher and explore his unique perspectives on life.

Jean-Paul Sartre was a prominent French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist. He is considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism, known for his work in existentialism. Sartre's philosophy influenced various fields including sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. Despite declining official honors, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964. Sartre had a significant relationship with feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and together they challenged societal norms and expectations. The conflict between conformity and authenticity was a central theme in his early work.

Born on June 21, 1905 in Paris, Sartre showed an early interest in philosophy and literature. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure where he formed lifelong friendships with influential intellectuals of his time. Sartre's philosophical development was greatly influenced by attending seminars conducted by Alexandre Kojève. Throughout his life, Sartre actively engaged in political activism and social justice causes. He strongly opposed colonization and supported the Algerian War for independence from French rule as well as anti-American involvement in the Vietnam War. As a prolific writer, Sartre produced numerous works including plays such as "No Exit" and "The Flies". In later years, he renounced literature but continued to write about politics and issues of social import. Jean-Paul Sartre passed away on April 15, 1980 in Paris.

✵ 21. June 1905 – 15. April 1980  •  Other names Jean-Paule Sartre
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Jean Paul Sartre: 321 quotes51 likes

Jean Paul Sartre Quotes

“I maintain that inversion is the effect of neither a prenatal choice nor an endocrinal malformation nor even the passive and determined result of complexes. It is an outlet that a child discovers when he is suffocating.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Orestes, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“I hate victims who respect their executioners.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Condemned of Altona

Loser Wins http://books.google.com/books?id=NwBMAAAAMAAJ&q="I+hate+victims+who+respect+their+executioners" (Les Séquestrés d'Altona: A Play in Five Acts) (1960)

“This inner revolution is realistic because it maintains itself deliberately within the framework of existing institutions; the oppressed reckon with the real situation.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Original: (66).

“…inversion…is an outlet that a child discovers when he is suffocating.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

91
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 5, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

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

Jean Paul Sartre book Situations

On Alberto Giacometti’s work, Situations, in Braziller (1965)

“The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 6, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

“He is dead, and my hatred has died with him.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Electra, before the dead Aegistheus, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“He chooses the most feared, most hated man in order to worship him as a god, feeling sure that he is alone in perceiving the god’s secret virtues.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

165
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 5, sc. 3
Dirty Hands (1948)

“That is precisely what we should have expected, since Genet wants to live simultaneously creation, destruction, the impossibility of destroying and the impossibility of creating, since he wants both to show his rejection of the divine creation and to manifest, in the absolute, human impotence as man’s reproval of God and as the testimony of his grandeur.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

424
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence — as not-bound to life.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Source: Being and Nothingness (1943), p. 237, 1998 edition

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

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 5, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

“We were too light, Electra. Now our feet press down in the earth like the wheels of a cart in its groove. Come with me, and we will walk heavily, bending under the weight of our heavy load.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Orestes, Act 3
The Flies (1943)

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

Jean Paul Sartre

L'imagination (Imagination: A Psychological Critique) http://encarta.msn.com/quote_561556153/Imagination_Imagination_is_not_an_empirical_or.html (1936)

“Similarly, individual acts of aristocratic generosity do not eliminate pauperism; they perpetuate it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

(219).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“The homosexual never thinks of himself when someone is branded in his presence with the name homosexual…. His sexual tastes will doubtless lead him to enter into relationships with this suspect category, but he would like to make use of them without being likened to them. Here, too, the ban that is cast on certain men by society has destroyed all possibility of reciprocity among them. Shame isolates.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“But [your crime] will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Clytemnestra to her daughter Electra, Act 1
The Flies (1943)

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

Jean Paul Sartre

"On the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg," Libération (22 June 1953)

“Jupiter: I gave you the liberty to serve me.
Orestes: That is possible, but it has turned against you and there is nothing either one of us can do about it.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Act 3
The Flies (1943)

“For Genet, reflective states of mind are the rule. And although they are of an unstable nature in everyone, in him…reflection is always contrary to the reflected feeling.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

(278).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“And we feel that the hero has lived all the details of this night like annunciations, promises, or even that he lived only those that were promises, blind and deaf to all that did not herald adventure. We forget that the future was not yet there; the man was walking in the night without forethought, a night which offered him a choice of dull rich prizes, and he did not make his choice.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Diary entry of Saturday noon (10 February?)
Nausea (1938)

“His obedience is real since he really and truly fulfills his mission, since he runs real risks in order to carry out the beloved’s orders. But, on the other hand, it is imaginary because he submits only to a creature of his mind.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

152
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“If we must absolutely mention this state of affairs, I suggest that we call ourselves “absent”, that is more proper.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Estelle, refusing to use the word “dead”, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Characterizations of Existentialism (1944)

“The anti‐Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. I mentioned awhile back some remarks by anti‐Semites, all of them absurd: "I hate Jews because they make servants insubordinate, because a Jewish furrier robbed me, etc." Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Pages 13-14
(1945)

“I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 10, sc. 2
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“The worst of misfortunes is still a stroke of luck, since one feels oneself living when one experiences it/”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

275
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“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

"Orphée Noir (Black Orpheus)"

“Only a neutral, who is indifferent to the stake and perhaps to all stakes, can appreciate aesthetically the grandeur of a fine disaster”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

(212).
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957)

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

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Mother to her young son, Act 1
The Flies (1943)

“The [Communist] Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Hugo, Act 5, sc. 3
Dirty Hands (1948)

“Thus, Beauty is neither an appearance nor a being, but a relationship: the transformation of being into appearance”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

408
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

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

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 2, sc. 4
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

141
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

“Nicias, do you think you can erase with good deeds the wrongs you committed against your mother? What good deed will ever reach her? Her soul is a scorching noon time, without a single breath of a breeze, nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing lives there; a great emaciated sun, an immobile sun eternally consumes her.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

King Aegistheus, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“It is too early to love. We will buy the right to do so by shedding blood.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 1
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

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

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 1
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“Her face seems ravaged by both lightning and hail. But on yours there is something like the promise of a storm: one day passion will burn it to the bone.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Act 1
The Flies (1943)

“I can be twenty women, one hundred, if that’s what you want, all women. Ride with me behind you, I weigh nothing, your horse will not feel me. I want to be your whorehouse!”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 3, sc. 4
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

“Now I am weary and I can no longer tell good from Evil, and I need someone to show me the way.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Orestes to Electra, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away…. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Part 2
Being and Nothingness (1943)

“I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Hugo to Slick and Georges, Act 3, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

“To eat is to appropriate by destruction.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Part 3: Being-For-Others
Being and Nothingness (1943)

“Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of “robber of remorse” and that I place in myself all [the townspeople’s] repentence?”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Orestes to Electra, Act 2
The Flies (1943)

“Admit it, it is your youth that you regret, more even than your crime; it is my youth you hate, even more than my innocence.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Electra to her mother Clytemnestra, Act 1
The Flies (1943)

“Man is always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is not. He makes himself known to himself from the other side of the world and he looks from the horizon toward himself to recover his inner being.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Being and Nothingness (1943)

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

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

Electra to her brother Orestes, Act 2
The Flies (1943)