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Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes - Page 5

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I do not think therefore I am a moustache

I do not think therefore I am a moustache

Jean-Paul Sartre
Thinking, Moustache
Jean Paul Sartre (1949). “The diary of Antoine Roquentin”

How can I, who was not able to retain my own past, hope to save that of another?

Jean-Paul Sartre
Past, Able, Alienation
"La Nausée (Nausea)". Book by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1949.

Because the Nazi venom worked its way even into our thoughts, every accurate thought was a conquest; because an all-powerful police sought to force us into silence every word became as precious as a declaration of principle; because we were persecuted, each of our gestures carried the weight of a commitment.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Powerful, Commitment, Silence

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 afterward.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Mean, Men, Essence
1946 L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism and Humanism,1948) (translated by Philip Mairet).

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Sleep, Water, Tree
Jean-Paul Sartre (2007). “Nausea”, p.157, New Directions Publishing

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Spring, Cutting, Use

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Peace, War, Politics
Le Diable et le bon Dieu (The Devil and the Good Lord, 1951) act 1, first tableau

One should commit no stupidity twice, the variety of choice is, in the end, large enough.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Choices, Stupidity, Enough

It is only in our decisions that we are important.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Decision, Important
Jean-Paul Sartre (2012). “Essays in Aesthetics”, p.13, Open Road Media

Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Eye, Ruins, Faces

Ideas come in pairs and they contradict one another; their opposition is the principal engine of reflection.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Reflection, Ideas, Pairs
Jean Paul Sartre (1961). “Sartre on Cuba”

Naturally, in the course of my life I have made lots of mistakes, large and small, for one reason or another, but at the heart of it all, every time I made a mistake it was because I was not radical enough.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Mistake, Heart, Reason
Jean-Paul Sartre (1978). “Sartre in the Seventies: Interviews and Essays”

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

Jean-Paul Sartre
Imagination, Realizing, Consciousness

I am myself and I am here.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Philosophy which does not help to illuminate the process of the liberation of the oppressed should be rejected.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Philosophy, Doe, Helping

A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Art, Philosophy, Men
Jean Paul Sartre (1949). “The diary of Antoine Roquentin”

He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Giving Up, Years, Games
"The Age of Reason". Book by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1945.

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
Order, Criticism, Language

An individual chooses and makes himself.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Individual
Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre (2016). “The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism”, p.165, Open Road Media

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

Jean-Paul Sartre
Philosophical, Science, Technology
Jean Paul Sartre (1955). “No exit, and three other plays”, Vintage

It’s the well-behaved children that make the most formidable revolutionaries. They don’t say a word, they don’t hide under the table, they eat only one piece of chocolate at a time. But later on, they make society pay dearly.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Children, Chocolate, Pieces
Jean Paul Sartre (1949). “Three Plays: Tr. from the French by Lionel Abel”

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Men, Doe

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it's the poor [and politically weak] who die.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Powerful, War, Rich

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Would Be, Ifs

Acting is happy agony.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Agony, Acting

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