Quotes About Existentialism

There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is--other people!

Yani sen...bütün o... anl?k trajediler, içinde maskelerin, ÅŸallar?n, mobilyalar?n ve benim birer küçük rol, senin de büyük bir rol oynad???n trajediler bitti mi art?k?

Obviously, nothing new has happened in a manner of speaking. This morning, at a quarter past eight, as I was leaving the Hôtel Printania to go to the library, I tried to pick up a piece of paper lying on the ground and didn't succeed. That's all, and it isn't even an event. Yes, but, to tell the whole truth, it made a profound impression on me: it occurred to me that I was no longer free.

Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God.

First, it has been charged with inviting people to remain in a kind of desperate quietism because, since no solutions are possible, we should have to consider action in this world as quite impossible. We should then end up in a philosophy of contemplation; and since contemplation is a luxury, we come in the end to a bourgeois philosophy. The communists in particular have made these charges.

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.

Love's a grand solace, isn't it, my friend? Deep and dark as sleep.

That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never agree that a sweeping passion is a ravaging torrent which fatally leads a man to certain acts and is therefore an excuse. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion.

La plupart du temps, faute de s'attacher à des mots, mes pensées restent des brouillards. Elles dessinent des formes vagues et plaisantes, s'engloutissent : aussitôt, je les oublie.

We were a heap of living creatures, irritated, embarrassed at ourselves, we hadn't the slightest reason to be there, none of us, each one, confused, vaguely alarmed, felt in the way in relation to others. In the way: it was the only relationship I could establish between these, tress, these gates, these stones. . . .

Des fois, je donnerais ma main à couper pour devenir tout de suite un homme et d'autres fois il me semble que je ne voudrais pas survivre à ma jeunesse.

and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea. A fine climax: it shakes me from top to bottom. I saw it coming more than an hour ago, only I didn't want to admit it

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.

Dostoevsky said, "If God didn't exist, everything would be possible." That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can't start making excuses for himself

This feeling of adventure definitely does not come from events: I have proved it. It's rather the way in which the moments are linked together. I think this is what happens: you suddenly feel that time is passing, that each instant leads to another, this one to another one, and so on; that each instant is annihilated, and that it isn't worth while to hold it back, etc., etc. (. . .) If I remember correctly, they call that the irreversibility of time.

L'enfer c'est les autres. aka, Hell is others. .

Zaten sözcüklerden gayr? ne var ki...

el infierno son los otros.

Duc în spate o soarta prea grea, pentru tinereÅ£ea mea!

But you have to choose: live or tell.

Partiye girme karar?n? vermeden önce öyle korkunç bir yaln?zl?k duyuyordum ki, can?ma k?ymay? bile düÅŸünmüÅŸtüm. Bu iÅŸten caymam?n nedeni ölümümden kimsenin duygulanmayaca??, ölümde, hayatta olduÄŸumdan daha yaln?z olaca??m? düÅŸünmemdir.

I am sure that fifteen minutes would be enough to reach supreme self-contempt. No thank you, I want none of that.

Yapayaln?z?m, ama kentin üzerine yürüyen bir ordu gibiyim.

Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can't describe it; it's like the Nausea and yet it's just the opposite: at last an adventure happens to me and when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here; I am the one who splits the night, I am as happy as the hero of a novel.