Quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre

people talk a lot about this famous passing of time, but you scarcely see it. You see a woman, you think that one day she will be old, only you don't SEE her grow old. But there are moments when you think you SEE her growing old and you feel yourself growing old with her: that is the feeling of adventure.

Solo los actos deciden acerca de lo que se ha querido.

Ma liberté s'arrête ou commence celle d'autrui. 

Ich möchte Ihnen so viel sagen, aber ich bin ausgeleert, sobald ich zu sprechen anfange. Alles ist wie weggeblasen. Sehen Sie: ich finde Sie schön, zum Beispiel; aber ich kann mich nicht wirklich darüber freuen. Es ist, als ob mir etwas fehlte ... (S. 64).

It is a profound boredom, profound, the profound heart of existence, the very matter I am made of.

No eres nada más que tu vida.

He seems to be a real enough character, and even tells us that he is thirty years old. Yet whenever Roquentin talks about his past, it has the studied randomness and the glamorous opacity of espionage. He is a spy from the world of nothingness. For instance, he talks carelessly about having been in an unlikely number of places: Shanghai, Moscow, Algiers, Meknes, Saigon, Aden, Hanoi, Angkor.

jag vet på förhand att dagen är tillspillogiven. Jag kommer inte att göra någonting bra förrän kanske natten faller på. Det beror på solen; den kastar ett svagt guldskimmer över den smutsvita rök som hänger i luften över järnvägen, den silar in i mitt rum, blond och blek och ritar på bordet fyra matta, falska reflexer.

Shall I awake in a few months, a few years, exhausted, disappointed, in the midst of fresh ruins? I should like to understand myself properly before it is too late.

Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended; it achieves significance only through its death. Towards this death, which may also be my own, I am drawn irrevocably. Each moment appears only to bring on the moments after. To each moment I cling with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplaceable – and yet I would not lift a finger to prevent it from being annihilated.

our enlightenment about Asia actually came to us first from irritated missionaries and from soldiers. Later came travelers - traders and tourists - who are soldiers that have cooled off. Pillaging is called shopping, and rape is practiced onerously in specialized shops.

I am alone now. Not quite alone. Hovering in front of me is still this idea. It has rolled itself into a ball, it stays there like a large cat; it explains nothing, it does not move, and it contents itself with saying no.

At the same time the music was drawn out, dilated, swelled like a waterspout. It filled the room with its metallic transparency, crushing our miserable time against the walls. I am in the music.

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June

Nausea's very subject is the randomness, the contingency, the superfluity, of the world; where better to begin than with Roquentin's own randomness, his contingency as an invented character?

Ceux qui me voient se fient rarement à ma parole: je dois avoir l'air trop intelligent pour la tenir.

Existentialism isn't so atheistic that it wears itself out showing that God doesn't exist. Rather, it declares that even if God did exist, that would change nothing

In the second place, this is the only theory that endows man with any dignity, and the only one that does not turn him into an object.

É verdade que se pode tentar recomeçar a vida? - insiste o rapaz. Pierre e Éve entreolharam-se hesitantes e sorriem com simpatia aos jovens. - Experimentem - aconselha Pierre.

it is not only oneself that one discovers in the cogito, but also the existence of others.

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

A stranger to the needs, hopes, and pleasures of the species, I squandered myself coldly in order to charm it. It was my audience; I was separated, from it by footlights that forced me into a proud exile which quickly turned to anguish.

Biz gümbürtüye gitmiÅŸ insanlar?z, diyordu gururla, biz hayat? ?skalayanlardan?z. Hiçbir iÅŸe yaramayaca??z.

C'est la nuit, qui abolit tout, fatigues et passions. Les opprimés dorment, les révoltés aussi; le monde est enseveli, l'histoire reprend haleine. Il reste, dans une bulle de lumière entourée de néant, cette élite qui veille, tout occupée de ses cérémonies.