Quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre

I felt that the success of the enterprise was in my hands: the moment had an obscure meaning which had to be trimmed and perfected ; certain motions had to be made, certain words spoken : I staggered under the weight of my responsibility. I started and saw nothing, I struggled in the midst of rites which were invented on the spot and tore them to shreds with my strong arms. At those times she hated me.

Her eyes stare at me but she seems not to see me; she looks as though she were lost in her suffering.

I'm going to leave, I'm going to take my train. But behind the existence which falls from one present to the other, without a past, without a future, behind these sounds which decompose from day to day, peel off and slip towards death, the melody stays the same, young and firm, like a pitiless witness.

I feel there are no more perfect moments. I feel it in my legs when I walk. I feel it all the time, even when I sleep. I can't forget it. I am dazzled, uncomfortable, I can't get used to it.

Aunque me quisiera con toda su alma, sería igualmente un amor de muerta.

What sort of adventures?' I asked him, astonished. 'All sorts, Monsieur. Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison. Monsieur, I believe the word adventure could be defined: an event out of the ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary.

Je n'ai pas rêvé cet héroïsme. Je l'ai choisi. On est ce qu'on veut.

And you know what wickedness is, and shame, and fear. 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.

What would you expect to find when the muzzle that has silenced the voices of black men is removed? That they would chant your praises? Did you think that when those heads that our fathers had forcibly bowed down to the ground were raised again, you would find adoration in their eyes?

I shall have to get used all over again to speaking to people without touching them.

Din clipa în care libertatea a f?cut explozie în sufletul unui om, zeii nu mai pot face nimic împotriva lui. Asta-i o treab? omeneasc?, ÅŸi numai ceilalÅ£i oameni - numai ei - au c?derea s?-l lase în libertate sau s?-l strîngâ de gît.

There are also amateurs. These are secretaries, office workers, shopkeepers, people who listen to others in cafes: around forty they feel swollen, with an experience they can't get rid of. Luckily they've made children on whom they can pass it off. They would like to make us believe that their past is not lost, that their memories are condensed, gently transformed into Wisdom.

For the moment they wanted to live with the least expenditure, economize words, gestures, thoughts, float: they had only one day in which to smooth out their wrinkles, their crow's feet, the bitter lines made by a hard week's work. One day only.

Je ne peux plus rien d'autre. Je ne les entends plus, tu sais. C'est sans doute qu'ils en ont fini avec moi. Fini: l'affaire est classée, je ne suis plus rien sur terre, même plus un lâche. Inès, nous voilà seuls: il n'y a plus que vous deux pour penser à moi. Elle ne compte pas. Mais toi, toi qui me hais, si tu me crois, tu me sauves.

If [literature] should turn into pure propaganda or pure entertainment, society will slip back into the sty of the immediate -- which is to say, the memoryless existence of hymenoptera and gastropods. None of this is so important, to be sure. The world can get by nicely without literature. But without human beings it can get by better yet.

The Other is the hidden death of my possibilities.

I realized that there was no half-way house between non-existence and this flaunting abundance. If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as far as mouldiness, bloatedness, obscenity were concerned.

For a moment I wondered if I were not going to love humanity. But, after all, it was their Sunday, not mine.

how nice it is to know you are so profoundly happy, it's had me beaming all day.

From time to time I yawn so widely that tears roll down my cheek.

Everything happens to every man as if the entire human race were staring at him and measuring itself by what he does. So every man ought to be asking himself, Am I really a man who is entitled to act in such a way that the entire human race should be measuring itself by my actions? And if he does not ask himself that, he masks his anguish.

Un hombre que está solo es hermoso. - Tan hermoso que enseguida da ganas de hacerle compañía. Y desde entonces deja de estar solo: así es el mundo.

Je n'ai jamais gratté la terre ni quêté des nids, je n'ai pas herborisé ni lancé des pierres aux oiseaux. Mais les livres ont été mes oiseaux et mes nids, mes bêtes domestiques, mon étable et ma campagne.

In choosing myself, I choose man.