Jean Paul Sartre: Other

Jean Paul Sartre was French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. Explore interesting quotes on other.
Jean Paul Sartre: 642   quotes 51   likes

“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 book Nausea

Source: Nausea

Thinking , Time , Happiness

“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 book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 4, sc. 5
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

People

“Hell is—other people!”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Variant: Hell is others.
Source: No Exit

People , Hell

“We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946)
Context: We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

Freedom , Dependency

“We will not go to Heaven, Goetz, and even if we both entered it, we would not have eyes to see each other, nor hands to touch each other. Up there, God gets all the attention…. We can only love on this earth and against God.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Acts 8 & 9
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

Love , God

“This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Reflections on a chestnut tree root.
Nausea (1938)
Context: Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.

Way

“I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946)
Context: We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

“So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is—other people!”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Garcin, Act 1, sc. 5
Variant: So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.
Source: No Exit (1944)

People , Hell

“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.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

On meurt toujours trop tôt - ou trop tard. Et cependant la vie est là, terminée : le trait est tiré, il faut faire la somme. Tu n'es rien d'autre que ta vie.
Inès, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)

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.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Inès, describing her path to Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
Source: No Exit (1944)

Suffering , Heart

“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
Communication , Change

“I wanted for the moments in my life to follow each other and order themselves like those of a life remembered. It would be just as well to try to catch time by the tail.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Nausea (1938)
Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories

Life , Time

“[W]e only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.”

Jean Paul Sartre

Miscellaneous

“They made me take cod liver oil: that is the height of luxury: a medicine to make you hungry while the others, in the street, would have sold themselves for a beefsteak. I saw them passing my window with their signs: “Give me bread.””

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 3, sc. 3
Dirty Hands (1948)

“I felt less alone when I didn’t know you yet: I was waiting for the other. I thought only of his strength and never of my weakness. And now here you are, Orestes, it was you. I look at you and I see that we are two orphans.”

Jean Paul Sartre The Flies

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

Waiting

“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 Dirty Hands

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

Soul

“Man cannot will 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

Characterizations of Existentialism (1944)

Help

“Everything is both a trap and a display; the secret reality of the object is what the Other makes of it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Critique of Dialectical Reason

Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)

Secret , Reality