The intellectuel engagé had a duty to dedicate himself to revolutionary activity, to question established orthodoxies, and to champion the interests … - Jean-Paul Sartre

What is meant by the term existentialism? Most people who use the word would be rather embarrassed if they had to explain it, since, now that the word is all the rage, even the work of a musician or painter is being called existentialist. A gossip columnist in Clartés signs himself The Existentialist, so that by this time the word has been so stretched and has taken on so broad a meaning, that it no longer means anything at all.

What people would like is that a coward or a hero be born that way.

esse est percipi, and he recognizes himself as being only insofar as he is perceived.