Quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre

The simplest, most indefinable quality had too much content, in relation to itself, in its heart.

But this richness was lost in confusion and finally was no more because it was too much.

I am the Thing. Existence, liberated, released, surges over me. I exist.

I am alone now. Not quite alone. Hovering in front of me is still this idea. It has rolled itself into a ball, it stays there like a large cat; it explains nothing, it does not move, and contents itself with saying no.

The effect of any form of materialism is to treat all men—including oneself—as objects, which is to say as a set of predetermined reactions indistinguishable from the properties and phenomena that constitute, say, a table, a chair, or a stone. Our aim is exactly to establish the human kingdom as a set of values distinct from the material world.

You might think that there's some authority you could look to for answers, but all of the authorities you can think of are fake.

Quand une fois la liberté a explosé dans une âme d'homme, les Dieux ne peuvent plus rien contre cet homme-là. Car c'est une affaire d'homme, et c'est aux autres hommes — à eux seuls — qu'il appartient de le laisser courir ou de l'étrangler.

Otodidakt konuÅŸmak istiyor gibi. Bak??? çok acayip; görmek için deÄŸil bu bak??, ruhça anlaÅŸmay? saÄŸlamak için. Otodidakt'?n ruhu, belli belirsiz göründüÄŸü o ulu kör gözlerine yükselmiÅŸ. Benimki de öyle yaps?n, gelip burnunu camlara yap??t?rs?n; ikisi de kibarca k?r?t?p dursunlar. Ruhça anlaÅŸma istemiyorum, daha bu kadar düÅŸmedim.Geri çekiliyorum.

Je ne suis ni le maître ni l'esclave, Jupiter. Je suis ma liberté! À peine m'as-tu créé que j'ai cessé de t'appartenir

Le secret douloureux des Dieux et des rois : c'est que les hommes sont libres. Ils sont libres, Égisthe. Tu le sais, et ils ne le savent pas.

All was fullness and all was active, there was no weakness in time, all, even the least perceptible stirring, was made of existence. And all these existents which bustled about this tree came from nowhere and were going nowhere.

I marvel at these young people: drinking their coffee, they tell clear, plausible stories. If they are asked what they did yesterday, they aren't embarrassed: they bring you up to date in a few words. If I were in their place, I'd fall over myself. It's true that no one has bothered about how I spend my time for a long while. When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell something: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends.

Cómo yo, que no he tenido fuerzas para retener mi propio pasado puedo esperar que salvaré el de otro?

Thirdly, the existent individual is impassioned, impassioned with a passionate thought; he is inspired; he is a kind of incarnation of the infinite in the finite. This passion which animates the existent (and this brings us to the fourth characteristic) is what Kierkegaard calls "the passion of freedom.

Un roi doit avoir les mêmes souvenirs que ses sujets.

I sank down on the bench, stupefied, stunned by this profusion of beings without origin: everywhere blossomings, hatchings out, my ears buzzed with existence, my very flesh throbbed and opened, abandoned itself to the universal burgeoning.

But time is too large, it can't be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrates. That gesture, for instance, the red hand picking up the cards and fumbling: it is all flabby. It would have to be ripped apart and tailored inside.

Tout homme a son lieu naturel; ni l'orgueil ni la valeur n'en fixent l'altitude: l'enfance décide.

Todavía no estoy en el infierno y ya tengo mis pequeñas costumbres de condenado.

Anny hasn't changed her letter paper, I wonder if she still buys it at the little stationer's in Piccadilly. I think that she has also kept her coiffure, her heavy blonde locks she didn't want to cut. She must struggle patiently in front of mirrors to save her face: it isn't vanity or fear of growing old; she wants to stay as she is, just as she is. Perhaps this is what I liked best in her, this austere loyalty to her most insignificant features.

Mighty king, come from so far, prepared by so many combinations, by so many vanished gestures. He disappears in turn, so that other combinations can be born, other gestures, attacks, counterattacks, turns of luck, a crowd of small adventures.

El mundo de las explicaciones y razones no es el de la existencia.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live

They are as unfree as Roquentin, yet they hide the terrible imprisonment of their existences by unthinkingly getting up, going out to work, relaxing on Sundays, and so on. They wrongly imagine that they have chosen this form of life, when of course it has chosen them.