The Best Jean Sartre quotes

The world would get along very well without literature. It would get along even better without man.–Jean — Paul Sartre

That is exactly the writer’s problem. What does literature stand for in a hungry world?–Jean — Paul Sartre

I was a neophyte in another world [in 1954].–Jean — Paul Sartre

Man is always a wizard to man, and the social world is at first magical.–Jean — Paul Sartre

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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

One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–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

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don’t want to change the world; you want to blow it up.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Existence is an imperfection. — Jean

Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.–Jean — Paul Sartre

The real nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, all that was not present did not exist.–Jean — Paul Sartre

You are––your life, and nothing else. — Jean

The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is.–Jean — Paul Sartre

To know what life is worth you have to risk it once in a while. — Jean

Death is a continuation of my life without me.–Jean — Paul Sartre

I am neither virgin nor priest enough to play with the inner life.–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

What is life but an unpleasant interruption to a peaceful nonexistence.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Life begins on the other side of despair. — Jean

The viable jewels of life remain untouched when man forgets his vocation of searching for the truth of his existence.–Jean — Paul Sartre

A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.–Jean — Paul Sartre

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books. — Jean

The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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

Before you come alive, life is nothing; it ‘s up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Life gave me everything I asked If all I asked was not a great deal, that’s my problem!–Jean — Paul Sartre

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

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom–ah the soul–destroying boredom–of long days of mild content.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin. — Jean

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

When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die. — Jean

When the rich [and politically powerful] make war, it’s the poor [and politically weak] who die.–Jean — Paul Sartre

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!–Jean — Paul Sartre

I believe, I desire, that social and economic ills may be remedied.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.–Jean — Paul Sartre

I considered calmly that I was born to write.–Jean — Paul Sartre

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are–that is the fact. — Jean

I am responsible for everything… except my very responsibility.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.–Jean — Paul Sartre

When one does nothing, one believes oneself responsible for everything.–Jean — Paul Sartre

To be responsible is to be the uncontested author of an event or thing.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–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

Every human endeavor, however singular it seems, involves the whole human race.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books. — Jean

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.–Jean — Paul Sartre

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.–Jean — Paul Sartre

You see, the contemporary writer must write through his intimations of unease, while trying to elucidate them.–Jean — Paul Sartre

Contemporary writer] could be a kind of [Samuel] Beckett who would not be felt to be totally committed to despair.–Jean — Paul Sartre

I think [Alain Robbe–Grillet] a good writer, but he speaks to the comfortable bourgeoisie.–Jean — Paul Sartre

The lad who dreams of being a boxing champion or an admiral chooses reality. If the writer chooses the imaginary, he confuses the two.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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. — Jean

Originally, poetry creates the myth, while the prose–writer draws its portrait.–Jean — Paul Sartre

As long as the writer cannot write for the two billion men who are hungry, he will be oppressed by a feeling of malaise.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.–Jean — Paul Sartre

If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.–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

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–Jean — Paul Sartre

If you begin by saying, ‘Thou shalt not lie,’ there is no longer any possibility of political action.–Jean — Paul Sartre

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.–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