“I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just.”

—  Jean Paul Sartre , Dirty Hands

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just." by Jean Paul Sartre?
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Jean Paul Sartre 321
French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, sc… 1905–1980

Related quotes

Tim Buck photo

“The Communist Party must be a revolutionary party our it will cease to be a Communist Party.”

Tim Buck (1891–1973) Canadian politician

Tim Buck A Conscience for Canada

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“As for us, my little friend, we entered [the Communist Party] because we were tired of dying of hunger.”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Act 3, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

Jane Fonda photo

“I believe that we cannot survive as a democratic country when we are supporting someone like Thieu in Saigon, who has put 300,000 political prisoners in jail because they've spoken in favor of peace. I just don't believe that when a Republican Party bugs the Democratic Party headquarters, that that smacks of democracy. These kind of things I speak out against. That doesn't mean I'm a Communist.”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Interview by Phil Donahue (1972)

Xi Jinping photo

“Why must we stand firm on the party's leadership over the military? Because that's the lesson from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Soviet Union, where the military was depoliticized, separated from the party and nationalized, the party was disarmed. When the country came to crisis point, a big party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we (Communist Party of China) do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist.”

Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China

As quoted in "China's new President Xi Jinping: A man with a dream" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21790384 in BBC News (14 March 2013).
2010s

John McCain photo

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn't my own man anymore; I was my country's.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

Bob Black photo

“There are libertarians who try to retrieve libertarianism from the Libertarian Party just as there are Christians who try to reclaim Christianity from Christendom and communists (I’ve tried to myself) who try to save communism from the Communist parties and states. They (and I) meant well but we lost.”

Bob Black (1951) American anarchist

The Libertarian as Conservative (1984)

“As far as I was concerned, the Catholic Church was just another totalitarian political entity, like the Communist Party or IBM, but I had to admit, it put on a good show. I watched the theatrics unfold.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Henry Rios series of novels, The Hidden Law (1992), p.66

“I should like to stress that the party is alive, not because Gorbachev is general secretary of its central committee. If he ceases to be general secretary, another leader will come.”

Gennady Yanayev (1937–2010) USSR politician

In an interview, February 1991 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/8060046/Gennady-Yanayev.html

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Phillip Abbott Luce photo

“The rigors of membership in the Progress Labor Party and its Stalinist tendencies only create a mental brick wall for the members of the sect. The Progress Labor Party and its vacuum-minded Communists should not be marked for government control merely because they are Communists. The illegal actions of PL do,…”

Phillip Abbott Luce (1935–1998)

Source: The New Left: The Resurgence of Radicalism Among American Students (1966), p. 103

Related topics