Quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre

The bond between being and non-being can be only internal. It is within being qua being that non-being must arise, and within non-being that being must spring up; and this relation can not be a fact, a natural law, but an upsurge of the being which is its own nothingness of being.

The truth is that I can't put down my pen: I think I'm going to have the Nausea and I feel as though I'm delaying it while writing. So I write whatever comes into my mind.

Nous sommes seuls, sans excuses. C'est ce que j'exprimerais en disant que l'homme est condamné à être libre. Condamné, parce qu'il ne s'est pas créé lui-même, et par ailleurs cependant libre, parce qu'une fois jeté dans le monde, il est responsable de tout ce qu'il fait. […] L'homme, sans aucun secours, est condamné à chaque instant à inventer l'homme.

Giacometti knows that space is a cancer on being, and eats everything; to sculpt, for him, is to take the fat off space, he compresses space, so as to drain off its exteriority.

all of us abandon ourselves to existence, because we were among ourselves, only among ourselves, it has taken us unawares, in the disorder, the day to day drift: I am ashamed for myself and for what exists in front of it.

The sun was clear and diaphanous like white win. Its light barely touched the moving figures, gave them no shadow, no relief: faces and hands made spots of pale gold.

This is the girl, here, this girl with a ruined look who touches me and whom I love.

I felt that the success of the enterprise was in my hands: the moment had an obscure meaning which had to be trimmed and perfected; certain motions had to be made, certain words spoken: I staggered under the weight of my responsibility.

Le vieillard: Maintenant... vous voyez aussi les morts. Pierre: Comment les distingue-t-on des vivants? Le vieillard: C'est bien simple: les vivants, eux, sonts toujours pressés.

Everything looks so much alike that you wonder how people got the idea of inventing names, to make distinctions.

Seuls les actes décident de ce qu'on a voulu.

Pour que l'événement le plus banal devienne une aventure, il faut et il suffit qu'on se mette à le raconter.

M. de Rollebon was my partner; he needed me in order to exist and I needed him so as not to feel my existence.

Those who wants to be loved, must want the freedom of the other, because love emerges from it, if I subject it, it becomes an object, and from an object I can not receive love.

When you want to understand something you stand in front of it, alone, without help: all the past in the world is of no use.

When I can't see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist. I pat myself just to make sure, but it doesn't help much.

Undoubtedly, on his death bed, at that moment when, ever since Socrates, it has been proper to pronounce certain elevated words, he told his wife, as one of my uncles told his, who had watched beside him for twelve nights, I do not thank you, Therese; you have only done your duty.

The Intellectual is someone who meddles in what does not concern him.

General ideas are more flattering. And then professionals and even amateurs always end up by being right

Many people are walking along the shore, turning poetic springtime faces towards the sea; they're having a holiday because of the sun. [...] The true sea is cold and black, full of animals; it crawls under this thin green film made to deceive human beings.

Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be...

Tout existant naît sans raison, se prolonge par faiblesse et meurt par rencontre.

I am illuminated within by a diminishing light.

El criminal no hace la belleza; él mismo es la auténtica belleza.