Authors:

Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes - Page 9

All Quotes Acting Adventure Age Alienation Atheist Children Choices Commitment Consciousness Country Desire Doubt Earth Evil Existentialism Feelings Freedom Generosity Giving Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell History Human Nature Inspirational Judgement Judging Language Liberty Life Literature Love Lying Memories Morality Nothingness Passion Past Peace Philosophy Politics Purpose Reality Reflection Responsibility Revolution Silence Sleep Solitude Soul Suffering Universe Values Violence Virtue Waiting War Water Writing
No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Infinite, Finite

A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Madness, Absurd, Relation

I have such a desire to sleep and am so much behind my sleep. A good night, one good night and all this nonsense will be swept away.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Good Night, Sleep, Desire
Jean-Paul Sartre (2013). “Nausea”, p.16, New Directions Publishing

I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Life, Hate, Order
"The Devil and the Good Lord" by Jean-Paul Sartre, (Act 11, sc. 2), 1951.

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
Life, Eye, Hands
"The Devil and the Good Lord". Play by Jean-Paul Sartre, Acts 8 & 9, June 7, 1951.

When one does nothing, one believes oneself responsible for everything.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Believe, Doe, Responsible
Jean-Paul Sartre (1962). “Altona ; Men without shadows ; The flies”

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Honesty, Integrity, Character
"The Wisdom of Jean-Paul Sartre: A Selection".

There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Fear, Heart, Secret Places
Jean Anouilh, Ugo Betti, Jean-Paul Sartre (1958). “Three European plays: Ring round the moon [by] Jean Anouilh, The queen and the rebels [by] Ugo Betti, In camera [by] Jean-Paul Sartre”

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man's resources?

Jean-Paul Sartre
Philosophical, Men, Resources
"Nausea". Book by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938.

Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Nausea, Alive, Unbearable
Jean-Paul Sartre (2013). “Nausea”, p.16, New Directions Publishing

To be responsible is to be the uncontested author of an event or thing.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Events, Responsible, Being Responsible

The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Life Is, Absurd

I think there is an enormous diference between speaking and writing. One rereads what one writes. But one might read it slowly or quickly. In other words, you do not know how long you will have to spend deliberating over a sentence. ... But if I listen to a tape recorder, the listening time is determined by the speed at which the tape turns and not by my own needs.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Writing, Thinking, Long

As for the square at Meknes, where I used to go every day, it's even simpler: I do not see it at all anymore. All that remains is the vague feeling that it was charming, and these five words that are indivisibly bound together: a charming square at Meknes. ... I don't see anything any more: I can search the past in vain, I can only find these scraps of images and I am not sure what they represent, whether they are memories or just fiction.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Memories, Past, Squares
Jean-Paul Sartre, Lloyd Alexander (1964). “Nausea”, p.32, New Directions Publishing

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Cycling, Realizing, Life Is
Jean-Paul Sartre (1972). “Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology”

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Thinking, My Thoughts

Man is the being whose project it is to be God.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Men, Projects

I will take it all: tongs, molten lead, prongs, garrotes, all that burns, all that tears, I want to truly suffer. Better one hundred bites, better the whip, vitriol, than this suffering in the head, this ghost of suffering which grazes and caresses and never hurts enough.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Hurt, Suffering, Tears
"No Exit". Book by Jean-Paul Sartre, Act 1, sc. 5, 1944.

Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Lying, Heart, Worms
Jean-Paul Sartre, Hazel Estella Barnes (1992). “Being and Nothingness”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

Atheism is a cruel long term business, and I have gone through it to the end.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Long, Atheism, Gone

Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him !

Jean-Paul Sartre
Taken, Poet

L'homme est condamne a' e" tre libre. Man is condemned to be free.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Men, Libre

To keep hope alive one must, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of the socialist camp.

Jean-Paul Sartre
Mistake, Alive, Horror

A Soviet citizen, an official writer, once said to me: "The day when Communism (that is, well-being for everyone) reigns, man's tragedy will begin: his finitude."

Jean-Paul Sartre
Men, Tragedy, Reign

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
Generosity, Giving, Facts
Jean-Paul Sartre, Hazel Estella Barnes (1992). “Being and Nothingness”, p.758, Simon and Schuster

You May Also Like: