Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Profoundly inspirational Jean-Paul Sartre quotes will challenge the way you think, and make your life worth living.
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Famous Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes
Everything has been figured out, except how to live. Jean Paul Sartre
If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company. Jean Paul Sartre
When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die. Jean Paul Sartre
Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. Jean Paul Sartre
Life begins on the other side of despair. Jean Paul Sartre
I’m going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become. Jean Paul Sartre
Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Jean Paul Sartre
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give life a meaning. Jean Paul Sartre
No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point. Jean Paul Sartre
Freedom is what we do with what is done to us. Jean Paul Sartre
Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices. Jean Paul Sartre
Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
We do not judge the people we love. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
We must act out passion before we can feel it. Jean Paul Sartre
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. Jean Paul Sartre
The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best. Jean Paul Sartre
There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours. Jean Paul Sartre
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
Acting is happy agony. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
My thought is me that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking. Jean Paul Sartre
She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist. Jean Paul Sartre
It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure. Jean Paul Sartre
Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth. Jean Paul Sarte
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. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
God is absence. God is the solitude of man. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are. Jean Paul Sartre
If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company. Jean Paul Sartre
Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes. Jean Paul Sartre
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance. Jean Paul Sartre
So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture chambers, the fire and brimstone, the burning marl. Old wives tales! There’s no need for red hot pokers. Hell is other people! Jean Paul Sartre
Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat. Jean Paul Sartre
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! Jean Paul Sartre
Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth. Jean Paul Sartre
I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating. Jean Paul Sartre
There is only one day left, always starting over it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die. Jean Paul Sartre
Never believe that anti Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
I hate victims who respect their executioners. Jean Paul Sartre
You must be like me; you must suffer in rhythm. Jean Paul Sartre
Being is. Being is in itself. Being is what it is. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost. Jean Paul Sartre
I had found my religion nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple. Jean Paul Sartre
That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. Jean Paul Sartre
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? Jean Paul Sartre
Words are loaded pistols. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity. Jean Paul Sartre
We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are that is the fact. Jean Paul Sartre
I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men. Jean Paul Sartre
Man is what he wills himself to be. Jean Paul Sartre
I have no need for good souls an accomplice is what I wanted. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. Jean Paul Sartre
That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. Jean Paul Sartre
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. Jean Paul Sartre
You and me are real people, operating in a real world. We are not figments of each other’s imagination. I am the architect of my own self, my own character and destiny. It is no use whingeing about what I might have been, I am the things I have done and nothing more. We are all free, completely free. We can each do any damn thing we want. Which is more than most of us dare to imagine. Jean Paul Sartre
Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. Jean Paul Sartre
Every word has consequences. Every silence, too. Jean Paul Sartre
Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. Jean Paul Sartre
To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while. Jean Paul Sartre
Commitment is an act, not a word. Jean Paul Sartre
There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. Jean Paul Sartre
Hell is other people. Jean Paul Sartre
I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves. Jean Paul Sartre
We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are that is the fact. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. Jean Paul Sartre
Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. Jean Paul Sartre
Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
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. Jean Paul Sartre
One always dies too soon or too late. And yet one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are your life, and nothing else. Jean Paul Sartre
It is only in our decisions that we are important. Jean Paul Sartre
As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become. Jean Paul Sartre
Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete. Jean Paul Sartre
For many have but one resource to sustain them in their misery, and that is to think, Circumstances have been against me, I was worthy to be something much better than I have been. I admit I have never had a great love or a great friendship; but that is because I never met a man or a woman who were worthy of it; if I have not written any very good books, it is because I had not the leisure to do so; or, if I have had no children to whom I could devote myself it is because I did not find the man I could have lived with. So there remains within me a wide range of abilities, inclinations and potentialities, unused but perfectly viable, which endow me with a worthiness that could never be inferred from the mere history of my actions. But in reality and for the existentialist, there is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art. Jean Paul Sartre
Existence precedes and rules essence. Jean Paul Sartre
