The Most Magnificent Quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (born June 21, 1905, Paris, France – died April 15, 1980, Paris), known as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French philosopher, writer, and literary critic.
During his life, Sartre published several exceptional works. Most significant are “Being and Nothingness” (L’Être et le Néant, 1943) and “Existentialism is a Humanism” (L’existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946).
Key Takeaways
- He was the proponent of existentialism and phenomenology and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy.
- His work has influenced many disciplines, such as sociology and critical theory. He had a lifelong relationship with Simone de Beauvoir.
- Sartre declined the Nobel Prize for Literature previously awarded to him in 1964, saying that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution.”
When the rich fight the rich, it is the poor who die.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene I, Page 11
Man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), (Yale University Press, ed. 2007), Page 29
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 14
Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act V, Page 214
Freedom is not what you do gratuitously. It is what you do with what’s been done to you.Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century by John Gerassi (1989), Page 47
Human life begins on the far side of despair.The Flies (1943), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1952), Act III, Page 160
There are two kinds of poor – those who are poor in company and those who are poor alone. The first are the real poor, the others are the rich who’ve been unlucky.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act II, Scene IV, Page 72
The best work is not the work that takes the most sacrifices. It’s the work in which you can best succeed.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act VI, Page 235
For those who want ‘to change life, ‘to reinvent love,’ God is nothing but a hindrance.Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), (George Braziller, ed. 1963), Book IV, Page 464
The worthy poor do not realize that their function is to exercise our generosity.The Words (1964), (George Braziller, ed. 1964), Part 1, Page 33
Your Holy Church is a strumpet; she sells her favors to the rich.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene I, Page 18
Words are “loaded pistols.”What Is Literature? (1947), (Philosophical Library, ed. 1949), Chapter I, Page 24
When we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men.Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), (Yale University Press, ed. 2007), Page 23
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 133
To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act VI, Page 236
A victory described in detail is indistinguishable from a defeat.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene I, Page 4
And so you should be, darling. Terribly frightened. That’s how one grows up into a decent, god-fearing man.The Flies (1943), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1952), Act II, Scene I, Page 97
Like all dreamers, I confused disenchantment with truth.The Words (1964), (George Braziller, ed. 1964), Part 2, Page 159
Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.On the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, in Libération (June 22, 1953)
I hate victims who respect their executioners.The Condemned of Altona (1960), (Vintage Books, ed. 1961), Act I, Page 5
As for men, it’s not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act V, Page 225
I recognize but one Church: the community of men.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene I, Page 20
People who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 18
Man is not the sum of what he has, but the totality of what he does not yet have, of what he might have.Literary Essays (Philosophical Library, ed. 1957), Chapter VI, Page 86
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.Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), (George Braziller, ed. 1963), Book I, Page 2
A man can’t become a saint when he has to work sixteen hours a day.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act II, Scene V, Page 81
The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don’t want to change the world, you want to blow it up.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act V, Page 225
This is what fools people: 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 own life as if he were telling a story.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 39
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.Being and Nothingness (1943), (Philosophical Library, ed. 1956), Part III, Chapter II, Page 322
I tell you truly: all men on earth are prophets, or God does not exist.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene I, Page 18
Men equally honest, equally devoted to their fatherland, are momentarily separated by different conceptions of their duty.Dirty Hands (1948), (Vintage Books, ed. 1955), Act IV, Page 194
She believed in nothing. Her scepticism alone kept her from being an atheist.The Words (1964), (George Braziller, ed. 1964), Part 1, Page 100
What do we mean here by “existence precedes essence”? We mean that man first exists: he materializes in the world, encounters himself, and only afterward defines himself.Existentialism is a Humanism (1946), (Yale University Press, ed. 2007), Page 22
Better have beasts that stand and let themselves be killed than men who run like rabbits.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act III, Scene XI, Page 144
I confused things with their names: that amounts to believing.The Words (1964), (George Braziller, ed. 1964), Part 2, Page 251
I will not be modest. As humble as you please, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the half-hearted.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act II, Scene IV, Page 73
Consciousness is a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.Being and Nothingness (1943), (Philosophical Library, ed. 1956), Part I, Chapter II, Page 47
Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of from a distance: it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast – or else there is nothing more at all.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 132
I am not virtuous; but our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to become so.The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), (Alfred A. Knopf, ed. 1960), Act I, Scene III, Page 50
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; giving is a keen, brief enjoyment, almost sexual. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.Being and Nothingness (1943), (Philosophical Library, ed. 1956), Part IV, Chapter II, Page 594
My thought is me: that’s why I can’t stop. I exist because I think… and I can’t stop myself from thinking.Nausea (1938), (New Directions, ed. 1964), Page 99
The writer is situated in his time. Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.Les Temps Modernes (October 1945)
In fact, in a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960), (ed. NLB, 1976), Page 473
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