Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes

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.

His obedience is real since he really and truly fulfills his mission, since he runs real risks in order to carry out the beloved's orders. But, on the other hand, it is imaginary because he submits only to a creature of his mind.

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

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.

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

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.

I grasp at each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever in myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises of the street, nor the false dawn of early morning: and even so the minute passes and I do not hold it back, I like to see it pass.

Reflection poisons desire.

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

¡Que me den algo que hacer, lo que sea! Sería preferible que pensara en otra cosa, porque en este momento estoy por representarme la comedia. Sé muy bien que no quiero hacer nada; hacer algo es crear existencia, y ya hay bastante existencia.

I can’t explain what I see. To anyone. There: I am quietly slipping into the water’s depths, towards fear. 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.

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.

It's your weakness gives them their strength. Mark how they dare not speak to me. A nameless horror has descended on you, keeping us apart. And yet why should this be? What have you lived through that I have not shared? Do you imagine that my mother's cries will ever cease ringing in my ears? Or that my eyes will ever cease to see her great sad eyes, lakes of lambent darkness in the pallor of it will ever cease ravaging my heart? But what matter? I am free. Beyond anguish, beyond remorse. Free. And at one with myself. No, you must not loathe yourself, Electra. Give me your hand. I shall never forsake you.

Nada ha cambiado y, sin embargo, todo existe de otra manera. No puedo describirlo; es como la Náusea y, sin embargo, es precisamente lo contrario: al fin me sucede otra aventura, y cuando me interrogo veo que me sucedo que yo soy yo y que estoy aquí; soy yo quien hiende la noche; me siento feliz como un héroe de novela.

I said to myself, 'I want to die decently'.