Quotes About Purpose

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.

There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.

Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of and the value of it is nothing else but the sense that you choose.

I had been born in order to fill the great need I had of myself.

J'ai envie de partir, de m'en aller quelque part où je serais vraiment à ma place, où je m'emboîterais... Mais ma place n'est nulle part; je suis de trop.

A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.

know very well that I don't want to do anything: to do something is to create existence—and there's quite enough existence as it is.

If I didn't try to assume responsibility for my own existence, it would seem utterly absurd to go on existing.

Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man....

I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.

Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended it achieves significance only through its death.

Commitment is an act, not a word

I am, I am, I exist, I think therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think anymore.

Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited... For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence.

Man is a useless passion. It is meaningless that we live and it is meaningless that we die.

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action… [L'être humain] n'existe que dans la mesure où il se réalise, il n'est donc rien d'autre que sa vie

to do something is to create existence

Happiness is not doing what you want but wanting what you do.

If... if I didn't try to get my life moving on my own account, I should think it just absurd to go on living.' A look of smiling obstinacy had come into Marcelle's face. 'Yes, yes - it's your vice.' 'It's not a vice. It's how I'm made.' 'Why aren't other people made like that, if it isn't a vice?' 'They are, only they don't know it.

I know very well that I don't want to do anything: to do something is to create existence—and there's quite enough existence as it is.

Je pense, lui dis-je, que nous voilà, tous tant que nous sommes, à manger et à boire pour conserver notre précieuse existence et qu'il n'y a rien, rien, aucune raison d'exister… L'autodidacte répondit que la vie a un sens si on veut bien lui en donner un. Il faut d'abord agir, se jeter dans une entreprise. Il y a un but, Monsieur, il y a un but… il y a les hommes.

Anyhow, isn't it better to think we've got here by mistake?

Que me den algo que hacer, lo que sea! Sería preferible que pensara en otra cosa, porque en este momento estoy por representarme la comedia. Sé muy bien que no quiero hacer nada; hacer algo es crear existencia, y ya hay bastante existencia.

Jean-Paul Sartre