Jean Paul Sartre: Existence

Jean Paul Sartre was French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. Explore interesting quotes on existence.
Jean Paul Sartre: 642 quotes51 likes

“My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think … and I can't prevent myself from thinking.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Ma pensée, c'est moi: voilà pourquoi je ne peux pas m'arrêter. J'existe parce que je pense … et je ne peux pas m'empêcher de penser.
Lundi ("Monday")
Nausea (1938)

“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).

“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

“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 No Exit

Estelle, discovering that there are no mirrors in Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

“Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do – any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture (1946)

“…man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Characterizations of Existentialism (1944)

“The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

“You see, I divide men into three categories: those who have a lot of money, those who have none at all and those who have a little. The first want to keep what they have: their interest is to maintain order; the second want to take what they do not have: their interest is to destroy the existing order and to establish one which is profitable to them. They each are realist, people with whom one can agree. The third group want to overthrow the social order to take what they do not have, while still preserving it so that no one takes away what they have. Thus, they preserve in fact what they destroy in theory, or they destroy in fact what they seem to preserve. Those are the idealists.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

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

“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 see 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 himself. Man simply is.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), p. 28