Quotes About Freedom

This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything that he does.

Existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him.

Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence. Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such

Madame Picard believed that a child should be allowed to read anything: 'A book never does any harm if it is well written.' While she was there, I had once asked permission to read Madame Bovary and my mother, in an oversweet voice, had said: 'But if my darling reads books like that at his age, what will he do when he grows up?' 'I shall live them!' This reply had met with the most complete and lasting success.

Man is free rather than man is freedom.

I am not your king, impudent larva? Who then has created you? Orestes: You. But you should not have created me free.

There are two ways to go to the gas chamber, free and not free.

Je n'ai pas rêvé cet héroïsme. Je l'ai choisi. On est ce qu'on veut.

Din clipa în care libertatea a f?cut explozie în sufletul unui om, zeii nu mai pot face nimic împotriva lui. Asta-i o treab? omeneasc?, ÅŸi numai ceilalÅ£i oameni - numai ei - au c?derea s?-l lase în libertate sau s?-l strîngâ de gît.

The Other is the hidden death of my possibilities.

Je n'ai jamais gratté la terre ni quêté des nids, je n'ai pas herborisé ni lancé des pierres aux oiseaux. Mais les livres ont été mes oiseaux et mes nids, mes bêtes domestiques, mon étable et ma campagne.

In choosing myself, I choose man.

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.

To exist is to create your own life.

The writer, a free man adressing free men, has only one subject - freedom

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.

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.

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

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

Thus pleasure itself, also becoming a right, lost its aggressive futility.

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.

L'existence précède l'essence

Those who conceal from themselves this total freedom, under the guise of solemnity, or by making deterministic excuses, I will call cowards. Others, who try to prove their existence is necessary, when man's appearance on earth is merely contingent, I will call bastards.

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.