Quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre

It is that, in a given society which is defined through its mode of production by institutions governing human relations, human life is ethically livable or that, if we prefer, man is always possible.

Les grandes personnes, établies dans mon âme, montraient du doigt mon étoile; je ne la voyais pas mais je voyais le doigt, je croyais en elles qui prétendaient croire en moi.

Qarjet e të rriturve ishin si një katastrofë mistike, diçka si lotët që derdh Zoti për ligësinë e njerëzve.

Mi son detto stancamente: Come poso sperare di salvare il passato di un altro, io che non ho avuto la forza di trattenere il mio?

If someone read every book that had ever been written. all he could say when he was done is he'd read a lot of books.

It is alive, I can't say it isn't; but this was not the life that Anny contemplated: I see a slight tremor, I see the insipid flesh blossoming and palpitating with abandon. The eyes especially are horrible seen so close. They are glassy, soft, blind, red-rimmed, they look like fish scales.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance. I

Si vous êtes solitaire, quand vous êtes seul, vous êtes en mauvaise compagnie.

Usted podrá juzgarlo, señor. Antes de tomar esa decisión me sentía tan espantosamente solo que pensé en el suicidio. Lo que me contuvo fue la idea de que nadie, absolutamente nadie se conmovería con mi muerte, que estaría aún más solo en la muerte que en la vida.

Êtes-vous si fort dans l'art de la dispute? demanda le curé, vous l'emportez sur les nôtres ! Je n'ai pas disputé, répondit M. de Rollebon, je lui ai fait peur de l'enfer.

Le monde est était une comédie sans acteurs.

it would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns:

One cannot help reflecting on the irony that the celebrated philosopher of freedom, the great atheist, maintained an almost religious faith in an ideology that vandalized the very face of freedom. In fact, Sartre was largely unpolitical during the 1930s (he did not vote), and Nausea is political only, as it were, at its margins.

Quand les riches se font la guerre, ce sont les pauvres qui meurent.

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 want to leave, go to some place where I will be really in my own niche, where I will fit in. . . . But my place is nowhere; I am unwanted, de trop. The

I'm not writing my book on Rollebon any more; it's finished, I can't write any more of it. What am I going to do with my life?

I would so like to let myself go, forget myself, sleep. But I can't, I'm suffocating: existence penetrates me everywhere, through the eyes, the nose, the mouth... And suddenly, suddenly, the veil is torn away, I have understood, I have seen.

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me-and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth-lying low-grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.

Wiem bardzo dobrze, ?e nie chc? nic robi?: czyni? cokolwiek to stwarza? istnienie – a jest i tak wiele istnienia.

float: they had only one day in which to smooth out their wrinkles, their crow's feet, the bitter lines made by a hard week's work. One day only. They felt the minutes flowing between their fingers; would they have time to store up enough youth to start anew on Monday morning?

Bir çeÅŸit kesinlik... fiziksel bir kesinlik içindeyim, yetkin anlar?n olmad???n? duyuyorum. YürüdüÄŸüm zaman ta ayaklar?mda bile duyuyorum bunu. Her zaman, hatta uykuda bile duyuyorum, unutam?yorum. Bir anda anlam?? deÄŸilim bunu; hayat?m ÅŸu gün, ÅŸu saatte birdenbire deÄŸiÅŸti diyemem. Ama ÅŸu anda, sanki bu bana dün aç?klanm?? gibiyim. ÅžaÅŸk?n?m, tedirginim, al??am?yorum.

What sort of adventures?" I ask him, astonished. "All sorts, Monsieur. Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison. Monsieur, I believed the word adventure could be defined: an event out of the ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary

I am not listening to him any more, but he must have strayed from his original subject because I suddenly hear: . . . to have, as you, the good fortune of writing a book. I have to say something. Good fortune, I say, dubiously. He mistakes the sense of my answer and rapidly corrects himself: Monsieur, I should have said: 'merit.