Top quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. Votes: 19

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. Votes: 17

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men. Votes: 17

Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat. Votes: 14

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Votes: 14

We do not judge the people we love. Votes: 14

Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total... because it may well involve the whole world. Votes: 12

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance. Votes: 12

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die. Votes: 11

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me. Votes: 10

I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist. Votes: 10

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day. Votes: 10

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete. Votes: 10

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens. Votes: 8

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure. Votes: 8

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it. Votes: 8

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. Votes: 7

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. Votes: 6

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. Votes: 5

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong. Votes: 4

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company. Votes: 4

Everything has been figured out, except how to live. Votes: 4

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking. Votes: 4

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices. Votes: 4

When the rich wage war it's the poor who die. Votes: 4

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. Votes: 3

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it. Votes: 3

God is absence. God is the solitude of man. Votes: 2

Acting is a question of absorbing other people's personalities and adding some of your own experience. Votes: 2

Life begins on the other side of despair. Votes: 2

Then time started flowing again and the emptiness grew larger. Votes: 0

Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding Votes: 0

I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted. Votes: 0

This then is the age of reason. Votes: 0

Acting is happy agony. Votes: 0

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous. Votes: 0

Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they are just good enough to be assassins. Votes: 0

the worst part about being lied to is knowing you werent worth the truth Votes: 0

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best. Votes: 0

God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream...God is dead. Votes: 0

Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough. Votes: 0

There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. Votes: 0

You take souls for vegetables.... The gardener can decide what will become of his carrots but no one can choose the good of others for them. Votes: 0

Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together. Votes: 0

It is not a matter of indifference whether we like oysters or clams, snails or shrimp, if only we know how to unravel the existential significance of these foods. Votes: 0

The [Communist] Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle. Votes: 0

I confused things with their names: that is belief. Votes: 0

your judgement judges you and defines you Votes: 0

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth. Votes: 0

I hate victims who respect their executioners. Votes: 0

If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner. Votes: 0

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. Votes: 0

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact. Votes: 0

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life. Votes: 0

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish. Votes: 0

There are two kinds of existentialist; first, those who are Christian...and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists, among whom...I class myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the turning point. Votes: 0

What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Votes: 0

I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me, and I have followed the source of rivers towards their source or plunged into forests, always making for other cities. I have had women, I have fought with men ; and I could never turn back any more than a record can spin in reverse. And all that was leading me where ? To this very moment... Votes: 0

Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them. Votes: 0

The more one is absorbed in fighting evil, the less one is tempted to place the good in question. Votes: 0

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us. Votes: 0

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point. Votes: 0

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon. Votes: 0

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity. Votes: 0

I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it. Votes: 0

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession. Votes: 0

In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary. Votes: 0

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked? Votes: 0

I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me. Votes: 0

I maintain that inversion is the effect of neither a prenatal choice nor an endocrinal malformation nor even the passive and determined result of complexes. It is an outlet that a child discovers when he is suffocating. Votes: 0

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June Votes: 0

To keep hope alive one must, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of the socialist camp. Votes: 0

L'homme est condamne a' e" tre libre. Man is condemned to be free. Votes: 0

I do not think therefore I am a moustache Votes: 0

A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil. Votes: 0

I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become. Votes: 0

Your scare me rather. My reflection in the glass never did that; of course, I knew it so well. Like something I had tamed...I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become. Votes: 0

Man is what he wills himself to be. Votes: 0

It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. Votes: 0

At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself. Votes: 0

We must act out passion before we can feel it. Votes: 0

Words are loaded pistols. Votes: 0

Time is too large, it can't be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrates. Votes: 0

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck. Votes: 0

Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light. Votes: 0

Listen to me: a family man is never a real family man. An assassin is never entirely assassin. They play a role, you understand. While a dead man, he is really dead. To be or not to be, right? Votes: 0

The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don't want to change the world; you want to blow it up. Votes: 0

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal Votes: 0

Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is. Votes: 0

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. Votes: 0

Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse. Votes: 0

Amuse yourself, torment your desires. Drink when you're thirsty -- that would be very much too simple! If you didn't harbour a temptation eternally in your soul, you'd run the risk of forgetting yourself. Votes: 0

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Votes: 0

Nothingness haunts Being. Votes: 0

There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it. Votes: 0

Death is a continuation of my life without me... Votes: 0

A little more and I would have fallen into the mirror trap. I avoided it, but only to fall into the window trap: with nothing to do, my arms dangling, I go over to the window. Votes: 0

People are like dice. We throw ourselves in the direction of our own choosing. Votes: 0

There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life. Votes: 0

I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore. Votes: 0

...freedom only gives you something to be sorry for. Votes: 0

Thus it amounts to the same thing whether one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations. Votes: 0

Existentialism is no mournful delectation but a humanist philosophy of action, effort, combat, and solidarity. Man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared. Votes: 0

Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man.... Votes: 0

With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection. Votes: 0

I see the insipid flesh blossoming and palpitating with abandon. Votes: 0

Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm. Votes: 0

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

This instant which I cannot leave, which locks me in and limits me on every side, this instant I am made of will be no more than a confused dream. Votes: 0

It answers the question that was tormenting you: my love, you are not 'one thing in my life' - not even the most important - because my life no longer belongs to me because...you are always me. Votes: 0

Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth. Votes: 0

In love, one and one are one. Votes: 0

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. Italways made me want to do just the opposite. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically. Votes: 0

It is too early to love. We will buy the right to do so by shedding blood. Votes: 0

There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what? Votes: 0

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. Votes: 0

The sun is not ridiculous, quite the contrary. On everything I like, on the rust of the construction girders, on the rotten boards of the fence, a miserly, uncertain light falls, like the look you give, after a sleepless night, on decisions made with enthusiasm the day before, on pages you have written in one spurt without crossing out a word. Votes: 0

Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes. Votes: 0

In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I am. I am, I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think any more, I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I . . . because . . . ugh! Votes: 0

I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted. Votes: 0

Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn't exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn't possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey Votes: 0

What is life but an unpleasant interruption to a peaceful nonexistence. Votes: 0

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life. Votes: 0

Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away. Votes: 0

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul. Votes: 0

Commitment is an act, not a word. Votes: 0

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor. Votes: 0

Existence precedes and rules essence. Votes: 0

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man's resources? Votes: 0

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry. Votes: 0

Hell is other people. Votes: 0

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost. Votes: 0

If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble. Votes: 0

I am not virtuous. Our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to be. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

In wanting freedom we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on ours. . . I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. I can take freedom as my goal only if I take that of others as a goal as well. Votes: 0

I am not recommending "popular" literature which aims at the lowest. Votes: 0

In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations. Votes: 0

Every word has consequences. Every silence, too. Votes: 0

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. [It is a matter of choice, not chance.] Such is the first principle of existentialism. Votes: 0

With a little luck that epoch may arrive. I am on the side of those who think that things will go better when the world has changed. Votes: 0

I needed to justify my existence, and I had made an absolute of literature. It took me thirty years to get rid of this state of mind. Votes: 0

My pessimism has never been flabby. Votes: 0

He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever. When you realize that by changing your perspective, big things can be seen as little things, it becomes much harder to worry about anything. Commitment is an act, not a word. Votes: 0

We are our choices. Votes: 0

I felt myself in a solitude so frightful that I contemplated suicide. What held me back was the idea that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life. Votes: 0

I consider Les Nourritures Terrestres as a frightening book: "Look for God in no other place than everywhere." Go and tell that to a workman, an engineer! Votes: 0

What I lacked [in La Nausee] was a sense of reality. I have changed since. I have slowly learned to experience reality. Votes: 0

Life has no meaning a priori"¦ It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose. Votes: 0

I am beginning to believe that nothing can ever be proved. These are honest hypotheses which take the facts into account: but I sense so definitely that they come from me, and that they are simply a way of unifying my own knowledge. Not a glimmer comes from Rollebon's side. Slow, lazy, sulky, the facts adapt themselves to the rigour of the order I wish to give them; but it remains outside of them. I have the feeling of doing a work of pure imagination. Votes: 0

There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours. Votes: 0

The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions "¦ and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the "divine irresponsibility" of the condemned man. Votes: 0

I have seen children dying of hunger. Over against a dying child La Nausee cannot act as a counterweight. Votes: 0

I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves. Votes: 0

Like morality, literature needs to be universal. So that the writer must put himself on the side of the majority, of the two billion starving, if he wishes to be able to speak to all and be read by all. Failing that, he is at the service of a privileged class and, like it, an exploiter. Votes: 0

There are two ways of destroying a people. Either condemn them en bloc or force them to repudiate the leaders they adopted. The second is the worse. Votes: 0

Philosophy which does not help to illuminate the process of the liberation of the oppressed should be rejected. Votes: 0

...Uncalled-for aggression arouses the hatred of the civilian population... Votes: 0

The way, applicable in our non-revolutionary societies, to prepare for the time when everyone will read, is to pose problems in the most radical and intransigent manner. This is what Alain Badiou has just done in Almagestes, where he puts language on trial with an intention of cleansing, of catharsis. Votes: 0

What I ask of [the writer] is not to ignore the reality and the fundamental problems that exist. The world's hunger, the atomic threat, the alienation of man, I am astonished that they do not color all our literature. Votes: 0

I have always been happy. Even if I had been more honest with regard to myself at that moment I should still have written La Nausee. Votes: 0

Besides one should not believe that the people only want reading that is easy to absorb. Votes: 0

To choose not to choose is still to act. Votes: 0

I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven's name, why is it so important to think the same things all together. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I receive letters from workers, from secretaries. . . . They are the most interesting ones. Votes: 0

I admire [Samuel] Beckett, but I am totally against him. He seeks no improvement. Votes: 0

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth. Votes: 0

I believe, I desire, that social and economic ills may be remedied. Votes: 0

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple. Votes: 0

Perception is naturally surpassed toward action; better yet, it can be revealed only in and through projects of action. The world is revealed as an "always future hollow", for we are always future to ourselves. Votes: 0

From the period when I wrote La Nausea I wanted to create a morality. My evolution consists in my no longer dreaming of doing so. Votes: 0

One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes' argument "I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity. Votes: 0

The individual's duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person. Votes: 0

[Andre] Gide can say it to me: it is a writer's morality only addressed to a few privileged people. For that reason it no longer interests me. Votes: 0

Sometimes the truth is too simple for intellectuals. Votes: 0

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it's the poor [and politically weak] who die. Votes: 0

Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition. Votes: 0

[M]an is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, in other respect is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. The Existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never agree that a sweeping passion is a ravaging torrent which fatally leads a man to certain acts and is therefore an excuse. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Votes: 0

First all men must be able to become men by the improvement of their conditions of existence, so that a universal morality can be created. If I begin by saying to them: "Thou shalt not lie," there is no longer any possibility of political action. What matters first is the liberation of man. Votes: 0

When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness. Votes: 0

If you seek authenticity for authenticity's sake you are no longer authentic. Votes: 0

This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell. Votes: 0

In Les Mots I explain the origin of my madness, of my neurosis. This analysis may help the young who dream of writing. Votes: 0

What then did you expect when you unbound the gag that muted those black mouths? 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? Votes: 0

It is up to you to give life a meaning. Votes: 0

I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

We cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and mute as stones, our very passivity would be an act. Votes: 0

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them? Votes: 0

This [service to oppressed] is the writer's task, and, if he fulfills it as he should, he acquires no merit from it. Votes: 0

I am neither virgin nor priest enough to play with the inner life. Votes: 0

I have changed as everyone changes: within a permanency. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

What I regretted in La Nausee was not to have put myself completely into the thing. I remained outside my hero's disease, protected by my neurosis which, through writing, gave me happiness. Votes: 0

Imagination is not an empirical or superadded power of consciousness, it is the whole of consciousness as it realizes its freedom. Votes: 0

That's what existence means: draining one's own self dry without the sense of thirst. Votes: 0

I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen. Votes: 0

Do you think I can read [Alain] Robbe-Grillet in an underdeveloped country? He does not feel himself maimed. Votes: 0

...I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity... Votes: 0

I think [Alain Robbe-Grillet] a good writer, but he speaks to the comfortable bourgeoisie. Votes: 0

For the artist, the color, the bouquet, the tinkling of the spoon on the saucer, are things in the highest degree. He stops at the quality of the sound or the form. He returns to it constantly and is enchanted with it. Votes: 0

Hell is other people at breakfast. Votes: 0

When my relations with the Communist Party gave me the necessary perspective I decided to write my autobiography. I wanted to show how a man can pass from literature held sacred to action which nevertheless remains that of an intellectual. Votes: 0

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think"¦ and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire. Votes: 0

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." Votes: 0

Thrown into the atmosphere of action [in 1954], I suddenly understood the kind of neurosis that dominated all my previous work. I had not been able to recognize it before: I was inside. Simone de Beauvoir had guessed these reasons before I did. Votes: 0

There are photographers who push for war because they make stories. They search for a Chinese who has a more Chinese are than the others and they end up finding one. They have him take a typically Chinese pose and surround him with chinoiseries. What have they captured on their film? A Chinese? Definitely not: the idea of the Chinese. Votes: 0

The lad who dreams of being a boxing champion or an admiral chooses reality. If the writer chooses the imaginary, he confuses the two. Votes: 0

Ideas come in pairs and they contradict one another; their opposition is the principal engine of reflection. Votes: 0

It is only in our decisions that we are important. Votes: 0

Photographs are not ideas. They give us ideas. Votes: 0

You see, the contemporary writer must write through his intimations of unease, while trying to elucidate them. Votes: 0

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself. Votes: 0

[Contemporary writer] could be a kind of [Samuel] Beckett who would not be felt to be totally committed to despair. Votes: 0

It is enough that one man hate another for hate to gain, little by little, all mankind. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The form [of literature] matters little to me, classical or not. Votes: 0

What is boredom? It is when there is simultaneously too much and not enough. Votes: 0

What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never useit for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power. Votes: 0

[Lost of the absolute] is in this sense that ''I no longer know what to do with my life" must be understood. Critics have been mistaken about the meaning of this phrase, seeing in it a cry of despair as in Simone de Beauvoir's "I have been cheated." When she uses this word it is to indicate that she claims from life an absolute which she cannot find there. Votes: 0

L'homme est une passion inutile. Man is a useless passion. Votes: 0

We are now in a position to understand the anti-Semite. He is a man who is afraid. Not of the Jews, to be sure, but of himself, of his own consciousness, of his liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and of the world of everything except the Jews. Votes: 0

What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death. Votes: 0

I wrote in Les Mots that "I have often thought against myself." That sentence has not been understood either. Critics have seen in it a confession of masochism. But that is how one should think: revolting against everything "inculcated'' that one may have within oneself. Votes: 0

A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work. Votes: 0

What is not possible is not to choose. Votes: 0

I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences. Votes: 0

One should commit no stupidity twice, the variety of choice is, in the end, large enough. Votes: 0

I have always been an optimist, perhaps even too much. Votes: 0

One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world. Votes: 0

You are -- your life, and nothing else. Votes: 0

It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are. Votes: 0

Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him ! Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Man is abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no aim but what he sets himself. Votes: 0

As long as the writer cannot write for the two billion men who are hungry, he will be oppressed by a feeling of malaise. Votes: 0

On my way to the office in the morning, there are, in front of me, behind me, other men going to their jobs. I see them; if I dared, I would smile at them. I think to myself that I am a socialist, that they are the purpose of my life, of my efforts and that they do not know it yet. Votes: 0

In Guinea I could read [Franz] Kafka. I re-discover in him my own discomfort. Votes: 0

I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity. Votes: 0

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books. Votes: 0

The public, too, has to make an effort in order to understand the writer who, though he renounce complacent obscurity, cannot always express his new-hidden thoughts lucidly and according to accepted models. Votes: 0

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind. Votes: 0

Several hours or several years make no difference once you have lost eternity. Votes: 0

The coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic. Votes: 0

Two people can form a community by excluding a third. Votes: 0

Man must be invented each day Votes: 0

I was a neophyte in another world [in 1954]. Votes: 0

But for me there is neither Monday nor Sunday: there are days which pass in disorder, and then, sudden lightning like this one. Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can't describe it, it's like the Nausea and yet it's just the opposite: at last an adventure happens to me and when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here; I am the one who splits in the night, I am as happy as the hero of a novel. Votes: 0

The characteristic of every neurosis is to represent itself as natural. Votes: 0

Don't you feel the same way? When I cannot see myself, even though I touch myself, I wonder if I really exist. Votes: 0

Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts. Votes: 0

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language. Votes: 0

Heroism is not to be won at the point of a pen. Votes: 0

It is always more valuable to report the truth. Votes: 0

I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing. Votes: 0

Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being. Votes: 0

I considered calmly that I was born to write. Votes: 0

If you die, I will lie down beside you and I will stay there until the end, without eating or drinking, you will rot in my arms and I will love you as carcass: for you love nothing if you do not love everything. Votes: 0

Atheism is a cruel long term business, and I have gone through it to the end. Votes: 0

Never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent;" my sole concern has been to save myself by work and faith. Votes: 0

I should wish [Alain Robbe-Grillet] to realize that Guinea exists. Votes: 0

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's. Votes: 0

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm. Votes: 0

The universe remains dark. We are animals struck by catastrophe. Votes: 0

Once freedom lights its beacon in man's heart, the gods are powerless against him. Votes: 0

When one loves animals and children too much, one loves them against human beings. Votes: 0

I discovered suddenly that alienation, exploitation of man by man, under-nourishment, relegated to the background metaphysical evil which is a luxury. Votes: 0

When we love animals and children too much, we love them at the expense of men. Votes: 0

There is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving. Votes: 0

He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end. Votes: 0

There is no book of mine that I reject. That does not mean that I find them good. Votes: 0

Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him. Votes: 0

If you begin by saying, 'Thou shalt not lie,' there is no longer any possibility of political action. Votes: 0

That of War and Peace or of Almagestes. All are satisfactory. The only criterion of a work is its validity: that it should grip and that it should last. Votes: 0

The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks. Votes: 0

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin. Votes: 0

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking. Votes: 0

The recent experiences of pocketbooks prove this. I have changed my public since my works have been published in a smaller format. Votes: 0

Absurd, irreducible; nothing--not even a profound and secret delirium of nature--could explain [a tree root]. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Existence is an imperfection. Votes: 0

Torture is senseless violence, born in fear... torture costs human lives but does not save them. We would almost be too lucky if these crimes were the work of savages: the truth is that torture makes torturers. Votes: 0

[Stéphane Mallarmé] theory of the hermetic is a mistake, but he can be only difficult to read when he has difficult things to say. Votes: 0

Everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident Votes: 0

it was odd, he thought, that a man could hate himself as though he were someone else. Votes: 0

It is the same: a chosen one is a man whom God's finger crushes against the wall. Votes: 0

It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it. Votes: 0

That is exactly the writer's problem. What does literature stand for in a hungry world? Votes: 0

So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people. Votes: 0

Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is. Votes: 0

So long as one believes in God, one has the right to do the Good in order to be moral. Votes: 0

I had dreamed my life for nearly fifty years (I am about to be fifty-nine). But, you see, there are two tones in Les Mats: the echo of this condemnation and a mitigation of that severity. Votes: 0

Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait. Votes: 0

For forty years I was conscripted by the absolute, the neurosis. The absolute is gone. There remain countless tasks among which literature is in no way privileged. Votes: 0

You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm. Votes: 0

There is no salvation anywhere. The idea of salvation implies the idea of an absolute. Votes: 0

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become. Votes: 0

This desire [to write] is rather strange all the same and is not without a certain "cracked" quality. Votes: 0

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is. Votes: 0

I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything. Votes: 0

Is there really nothing, nothing left of me? Votes: 0

Men equally honest, equally devoted to their fatherland, are momentarily separated by different conceptions of their duty. Votes: 0

In a country lacking leaders, in Africa, for instance, how could a native educated in Europe refuse to become a professor, even at the price of his literary vocation? Votes: 0

It is meaningless that we are born, it is meaningless that we die. Votes: 0

Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out. Votes: 0

Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul. Votes: 0

At that time [1954], as a result of political events, I was deeply preoccupied by my relations with the Communist Party. Votes: 0

You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen. Votes: 0

Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil. Votes: 0

To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while. Votes: 0

If I did not publish this autobiography [Les Mots] sooner and in its most radical form, it is because I considered it exaggerated. Votes: 0

Introspection is always retrospection Votes: 0

If I relegate impossible Salvation to the prop room, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe. Votes: 0

I had realized in the meantime that action too has its difficulties, and that one can also be led to it by neurosis. We are not saved by politics any more than by literature. Votes: 0

Once we know and are aware, we are responsible for our action and our inaction. We can do something about it or ignore it. Either way, we are still responsible. Votes: 0

You know how much I admire Che Guevara. In fact, I believe that the man was not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age: as a fighter and as a man, as a theoretician who was able to further the cause of revolution by drawing his theories from his personal experience in battle. Votes: 0

For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexibleorder gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves.... I would like to hole them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stooping one, there would only remain in may hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions. Votes: 0

It is better; heavier, crueler. The mouth you wear for hell. Votes: 0

Il n'y a pas d'autre univers qu'un univers humain, l'univers de la subjectivite humaine. There is no other universe except the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity. Votes: 0

The status of 'native' is a nervous condition introduced and maintained by the settler among colonized people with their consent. Votes: 0

All-powerful god, who am I but the fear that I inspire in others? Votes: 0

Aegistheus, the kings have another secret.... Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the Gods can do nothing against that man. It is a matter for men to handle amongst themselves, and it is up to other men and to them alone to let him flee or to destroy him. Votes: 0

With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all. Votes: 0

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words. Votes: 0

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail. Votes: 0

Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the of it is nothing other than the sense you choose. Votes: 0

Criminals together. We're in hell, my little friend, and there's never any mistake there. People are not damned for nothing. Votes: 0

I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary. Votes: 0

I am a man, Jupiter, and each man must invent his own path. Votes: 0

I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it's urgency... Votes: 0

A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness...and suddenly the "I" pales, pales, and fades out. Votes: 0

The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free, Aegistheus. You know it and they do not. Votes: 0

Ah! Do not judge the gods, young man, they have painful secrets. Votes: 0

I know only one Church: it is the society of men. Votes: 0

But I must finally realize that I am subject to these sudden transformations. The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place. Votes: 0

It's just what people do when they're getting old, when they're sick of themselves and their life; they think of money and take care of themselves. Votes: 0

Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up; I forget them almost immediately. Votes: 0

Un homme n'est rien d'autre qu'une se rie d'entreprises. A man is no other than a series of undertakings. Votes: 0

Nicias, do you think you can erase with good deeds the wrongs you committed against your mother? What good deed will ever reach her? Her soul is a scorching noon time, without a single breath of a breeze, nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing lives there; a great emaciated sun, an immobile sun eternally consumes her. Votes: 0

There it is: I am gently slipping into the water's depths, towards fear. Votes: 0

Man is the being whose project it is to be God. Votes: 0

To be responsible is to be the uncontested author of an event or thing. Votes: 0

We make our own hell out of the people around us. Votes: 0

It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name. It's not at all right that you do not breathe a word about them to anyone, not even to your own soul, for fear of having to stand in judgment of yourself. I am willing to believe that at the beginning you did not realize what was happening; later, you doubted whether such things could be true; but now you know, and still you hold your tongues. Votes: 0

To eat is to appropriate by destruction. Votes: 0

Every human endeavor, however singular it seems, involves the whole human race. Votes: 0

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical. Votes: 0

Hell is for other people. Votes: 0

Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence. Votes: 0

Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write. Votes: 0

Existence is prior to essence. Votes: 0

How can I, who was not able to retain my own past, hope to save that of another? Votes: 0

The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist. Votes: 0

It is no longer possible to escape men. Farewell to the monsters, farewell to the saints. Farewell to pride. All that is left is men. Votes: 0

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe! Votes: 0

To whomever gives a kiss or a blow Render a kiss or blow But to whomever gives when you are unable to return Offer all the hatred in your heart For you were slaves and he enslaves you Votes: 0

I committed the first crime by creating men as mortals. After that, what more could you do, you the murderers? Come on; they already had death in them: at most you simply hastened things a little. Votes: 0

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe. Votes: 0

A good hanging now and then -- that entertains folk in the provinces and robs death of its glamour. Votes: 0

Life gave me everything I asked If all I asked was not a great deal, that's my problem! Votes: 0

It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns...It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I. Votes: 0

All I can do is make the best of what I am, become accustomed to it, evaluate the possibilities, and take advantage of them the best I can. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Everything in my past, in my training, everything that has been most essential in my activity up to now has made me above all a man who writes, and it is too late for that to change. Votes: 0

Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea. Votes: 0

It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish. Votes: 0

I've dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart "“ and you'll see how nice I can be. Votes: 0

I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God. Votes: 0

Everything comes to us from others. To Be is to belong to someone. Votes: 0

Words There is no good father, that's the rule. Don't lay the blame on men but on the bond of paternity, which is rotten. To beget children, nothing better; to have them, what iniquity! Votes: 0

What never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there. Votes: 0

Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom-ah the soul-destroying boredom-of long days of mild content. Votes: 0

Some of these days, Oh, you'll miss me honey Votes: 0

And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world. Votes: 0

Man is condemned to be free Votes: 0

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my throat, it caresses me- and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me. Votes: 0

I don't know. Everything. Living. Smoking. Votes: 0

A human being who wakened in the morning with a queesy stomach, with fifteen hours to kill before next bedtime, had not much use for freedom. Votes: 0

I was escaping from Nature and at last becoming myself, that Other whom I was aspiring to be in the eyes of others. Votes: 0

When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all. Votes: 0

My eyes feel all soft, all soft as flesh. I'm going to sleep. Votes: 0

Life is a useless passion. Votes: 0

Ah! How I hate the crimes of the new generation: they are dry and sterile as darnel. Votes: 0

Love or hatred calls for self-surrender. He cuts a fine figure, the warm-blooded, prosperous man, solidly entrenched in his well-being, who one fine day surrenders all to love"”or to hatred; himself, his house, his land, his memories. Votes: 0

I distrust the incommunicable; it is the source of all violence Votes: 0

So much torture, bloodshed, deceit. You cannot make your young people practice torture twenty-four hours a day and not expect to pay a price for it. Votes: 0

Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended it achieves significance only through its death. Votes: 0

I enjoy feeling fastidious and aloof. I enjoy saying no, always no, and I should be afraid of any attempt to construct a finally habitable world, because I should merely have to say - Yes; and act like other people. Votes: 0

Then I realized what separated us: what I thought about him could not reach him; it was psychology, the kind they write about in books. But his judgment went through me like a sword and questioned my very right to exist. And it was true, I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put out feelers towards small pleasures in every direction. Sometimes it sent out vague signals; at other times I felt nothing more than a harmless buzzing. Votes: 0

I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape. Votes: 0

Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the gods can do nothing against that man. Votes: 0

One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself. Votes: 0

A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness. Votes: 0

Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this city and myself. When you suddenly realize it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift . . . that's nausea. Votes: 0

In the state I was in, if someone had come and told me I could go home quietly, that they would leave me my life whole, it would have left me cold: several hours or several years of waiting is all the same when you have lost the illusion of being eternal. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death. Votes: 0

The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being. Votes: 0

We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity-it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me. Votes: 0

The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is. Votes: 0

emotion is first of all and in principle an accident Votes: 0

She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond", "What does?" "This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal. Votes: 0

I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands....I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed....He never looked at me again....I had the more difficulty getting rid of Him the Holy Ghost in that He had installed Himself at the back of my head....I collared the Holy Ghost in the cellar and threw Him out. Votes: 0

Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose. Votes: 0

So it comes to this; one doesn't need rest. Why bother about sleep if one isn't sleepy? That stands to reason, doesn't it? Wait a minute, there's a snag somewhere; something disagreeable. Why, now, should it be disagreeable? "¦Ah, I see; it's life without a break. Votes: 0

Man's existence precedes his essence Votes: 0

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution. Votes: 0

If a Jew is fascinated by Christians it is not because of their virtues, which he values little, but because they represent anonymity, humanity without race. Votes: 0

Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all. Votes: 0

He loves me, he doesn't love my bowels, if they showed him my appendix in a glass he wouldn't recognize it, he's always feeling me, but if they put the glass in his hands he wouldn't touch it, he wouldn't think, "that's hers," you ought to love all of somebody, the esophagus, the liver, the intestines. Maybe we don't love them because we aren't used to them, but if we saw them the way we saw our hands and arms maybe we'd love them; the starfish must love each other better than we do. Votes: 0

I am responsible for everything... except my very responsibility. Votes: 0

Generally speaking there is no irreducible taste or inclination. They all represent a certain appropriative choice of being. It is up to existential psychoanalysis to compare and classify them. Ontology abandons us here; it has merely enabled us to determine the ultimate ends of human reality, its fundamental possibilities, and the value which haunts it. Votes: 0

One does not adopt a new idea, one slips into it. Votes: 0

Philosophy appears to some people as a homogenous milieu: there thoughts are born and die, there systems are built, and there, in turn, they collapse. Others take Philosophy for a specific attitude which we can freely adopt at will. Still others see it as a determined segment of culture. In our view Philosophy does not exist. Votes: 0

The viable jewels of life remain untouched when man forgets his vocation of searching for the truth of his existence. Votes: 0

For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously. Votes: 0

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's a second nature with me"”and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely. Votes: 0

I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of out time - the time of purple suspenders, and broken chair seats; it is made of white, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for twenty years. Votes: 0

We do not wish to say only that a man is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for that of all men. Votes: 0

For common minds have an ugly ability to perceive in the deepest and richest saying nothing but their own everyday opinion. Votes: 0

To love is never just to love since it is also to will to love, and ... to love in spite of oneself, to allow oneself to be overcome by one's love. Votes: 0

This is the basis for the joy of love when there is joy; we feel that our existence is justified. Votes: 0

It is disgusting -- Why must we have bodies? Votes: 0

Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them... there is nothing. Votes: 0

The world would get along very well without literature. It would get along even better without man. Votes: 0

Therefore, in the nature of this will for freedom, which freedom itself implies, I may pass judgement on those who seek to hide from themselves the complete arbitrariness and the complete freedom of their existence. Votes: 0

When one does nothing, one believes oneself responsible for everything. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Outside nature, against nature, without excuse, beyond remedy, except what remedy I find within myself. Votes: 0

In the nineteenth century one had to give all sorts of guarantees and lead an exemplary life in order to cleanse oneself in the eyes of the bourgeois of the sin of writing, for literature is, in essence, heresy. The situation has not changed except that it is now the Communists, that is, the qualified representatives of the proletariat, who as a matter of principle regard the writer as suspect. Votes: 0

Happiness has to be installed in each person as a state of affairs completely cut off from the process that brought it about and, in particular, from the real situation. Man has to be affected with happiness. It is a tonality given to him. Contradiction: if one does take care to give him happiness, it is because he is a free creature--but in order to give it to him, one turns him into an object. Votes: 0

The past is the luxury of proprietors. Votes: 0

In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. Votes: 0

Understand me: I wish to be a man from somewhere, a man among men. You see, a slave, when he passes by, weary and surly, carrying a heavy load, limping along and looking down at his feet, only at his feet to avoid falling down; he is in his town, like a leaf in greenery, like a tree in a forest, argos surrounds him, heavy and warm, full of herself; I want to be that slave, Electra, I want to pull the city around me and to roll myself up in it like a blanket. I will not leave. Votes: 0

Remember, Orestes: you were part of my herd, you grazed in the fields along with my sheep. Your liberty is nothing but a mange eating away at you, it is nothing but an exile. Votes: 0

What I see is teeming cohesion, contained dispersal... For him, to sculpt is to take the fat off space. Votes: 0

What's done at night belongs to the night. In the daytime you don't talk about it. Votes: 0

The plight of modern man is that he is condemmed to be free. Votes: 0

God is the solitude of men. There was only me: I alone decided to commit Evil; alone, I invented Good. I am the one who cheated, I am the one who performed miracles, I am the one accusing myself today, I alone can absolve myself; me, the man. Votes: 0

Some men are born committed to action: they do not have a choice, they have been thrown on a path, at the end of that path, an act awaits them, their act. Votes: 0

She suffers as a miser. She must be miserly with her pleasures, as well. I wonder if sometimes she doesn't wish she were free of this monotonous sorrow, of these mutterings which start as soon as she stops singing, if she doesn't wish to suffer once and for all, to drown herself in despair. In any case, it would be impossible for her: she is bound. Votes: 0

We will freedom for freedom's sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim. Votes: 0

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.) Votes: 0

I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant. Votes: 0

Lord, you have cursed Cain and Cain's children: thy will be done. You have allowed men's hearts to be corrupted, that their intentions be rotten, that their actions putrefy and stink: thy will be done. Votes: 0

Absurd, irreducible; nothing "” not even a profound and secret delirium of nature "” could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it. Votes: 0

I have nothing but contempt for you idiotic chosen ones who have the heart to rejoice when there are the damned in Hell and the poor on earth; as for me, I am on the side of men and I will not leave it. Votes: 0

The writer is committed when he plunges to the very depths of himself with the intent to disclose, not his individuality, but his person in the complex society that conditions and supports him. Votes: 0

I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living. Votes: 0

I am myself and I am here. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished. Votes: 0

A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing. Votes: 0

To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head Votes: 0

An individual chooses and makes himself. Votes: 0

Because we can imagine, we are free. Votes: 0

All the same, they [books] do serve some purpose. Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image. Votes: 0

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way. Votes: 0

I said to myself, 'I want to die decently'. Votes: 0

But [your crime] will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride. Votes: 0

All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view. Votes: 0

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself Votes: 0

To choose this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all. Votes: 0

All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure. Votes: 0

Man is always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is not. He makes himself known to himself from the other side of the world and he looks from the horizon toward himself to recover his inner being. Votes: 0

In order to make myself recognized by the Other, I must risk my own life. To risk one's life, in fact, is to reveal oneself as not-bound to the objective form or to any determined existence "” as not-bound to life. Votes: 0

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books. Votes: 0

I clung to nothing, in a way I was calm. But it was a horrible calm"”because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes, I heard with its ears, but it was no longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself and I didn't recognize it any more. Votes: 0

I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just. Votes: 0

I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again. Votes: 0