I leave you the best phrases of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), a pioneering intellectual and defender of existentialism who defended leftist causes in France and in other countries.
He wrote several books, including the very influential El ser y la nada, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964, although he rejected it, claiming that accepting it would be like putting himself at the service of that institution.
He had a relationship with the notable intellectual Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, both in lifestyle and in thought.
His numerous works had and still have a great influence on sociology, critical thinking and literary studies. You may also be interested in these quotes from philosophers or these from famous writers.
-Today we know how everything is done, except living.
-If you feel lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.
-It is exclusively up to you to give meaning to your life.
-Man is what he decides to be for himself.
-To know what our life is worth, it doesn't hurt to risk it from time to time.
-Life ceases to have meaning the moment the illusion that it is eternal is lost.
-We are nothing more than our own decisions.
-There may be more beautiful times, but this time is ours.
-Life begins on the other side of despair.
-I am my thought, that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think and I cannot stop thinking.
-There is no reality except in action.
-As far as man is concerned, I am not interested in what he is, but what he is capable of becoming.
-Man is condemned to be free, since once in the world, he is responsible for all his actions.
-Death is the continuation of my life without me.
-Life is nothing more than a useless passion.
-The worst thing about being lied to is knowing that you didn't even deserve the truth.
-The words are loaded pistols.
-Non-existence lies hidden in the heart of every being, like a worm.
-In love, one and one is equal to one.
-You are you, your life, and nothing else.
-It seems that everything I know about my life I have learned from books.
-Throughout my life I have realized that all our problems stem from our inability to use clear and concise language.
-My love, you are not "one thing in my life", not even the most important thing, because my life no longer belongs to me, because my life is you.
-You can sew your lips or cut your tongue, but can you cease to exist? Can you stop thinking?
-It is more dangerous to be a good journalist than a bad murderer.
-The emptier the hourglass of our life is, the more clearly we should see through it.
-The commitment is an act, not a word.
-Everything that exists is born without reason, prolongs its life despite weakness and dies by chance.
-It may be inevitable. We may actually have to choose between being nothing or pretending to be.
-There is nothing more important than a book. For me, the library is a temple, and reading a religion.
- Do you think I count the days? There is only one day left, one that always repeats itself. It is given to us at sunrise and it is taken from us at sunset.
-Creer is summed up in confusing things with his name.
-Once freedom has enlightened the heart of man, the gods have no power over him.
-One can only be harmed through others. We can never harm ourselves directly.
-It is the duty of every individual to do what he wants to do, to think what he wants to think, not to respond to anyone except himself, and to question every idea and every individual.
-In football, everything is complicated by the presence of the rival team.
-Existence is prior to essence, and rules over it.
-I want to die decently.
-When you understand the details of victory, it is difficult to distinguish it from defeat.
-We are only important in our decisions.
-Your judgment judges and defines you.
-I have never tolerated the idea that someone expects something from me.
-Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you.
-The objective of language is to communicate, to impart the results that one has obtained. As I speak, I reveal a situation. I reveal it to myself and others so I can change it.
-Like every dreamer, I confused disappointment with truth.
-I hate victims who respect their executioners.
-I am going to smile, and my smile will penetrate your pupils, and God knows what it will become.
-I have been able to verify that the human heart is empty and insipid everywhere except in books.
-When the rich embark on a war, it is the poor who die.
-Man is alone, abandoned on Earth, in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other objective than the one he sets out to do.
-Why is it so important that we all agree?
-When someone has expected something from me, I have always wanted to do just the opposite.
-Three o'clock is always too late or too early for what you want to do.
-The man will not be able to do anything of value until he understands that he cannot count on anyone except himself.
-Life has no meaning a priori. The meaning of your life is up to you, and the value of your life is nothing but the meaning you choose.
-Forget you? How immature! I feel you in my bones. Your silence deafens me.
-Soft and smiling faces everywhere, but doom in their looks.
-It makes no sense to think about complaining, since nothing external has decided what we feel, or what we live, or what we are.
-I suppose it's laziness that makes the world the same day after day.
-The man tends to tell his life more than to live it. He sees everything through what he tells, and tries to live his life as if it were a story. But we have to choose between living our life or telling it.
-Only the one who is not moving forward has time to bother.
-I cannot deny that God does not exist. But I can't forget that my entire existence cries out for a god.
-I exist, that's all. And I find it extremely unpleasant.
-We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are. That's the truth.
-Existence is an imperfection.
-Not being tied to my own words makes my thoughts blurry most of the time. That is why I forget them almost immediately.
-People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they are seen by their friends. I don't have friends, is that why I look so naked?
-Man is condemned to be free because he did not create himself, but was placed in this world.
-Nothing happens while we live. The scenery changes, people come and go. That's it.
-There is no beginning of anything. The days pile up one after another without order or concert. An endless monotonous addition of days.
-At the moment of death, our life is always complete.
-Man is not so much the sum of what he has, but rather the sum of what he does not have; than I could have.
-The consciousness that says "I exist" is not the consciousness that thinks.
-We do not judge the people we love.
- Generosity is nothing more than the desire to possess. Everything that is abandoned, everything that is given, is enjoyed much more by giving it away. To give is to possessively enjoy what is given.
-There are two types of poor: those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The former are the truly poor, while the latter are rich who have been unlucky.
-No finite term makes sense without an infinite point of reference.
- Politics is a science. With it you can show that you are right and that others are wrong.
-Every time you are closer to becoming the corpse that you will be and even so, I still love you.
-I find myself alone in the midst of happy and reasonable voices. All of these people waste their time explaining and reaffirming that they agree with each other. I wonder why it is so important to think the same things all together?
-Starting to love someone is like creating a great company. You have to have energy, generosity and blindness. There may even be a time at the beginning where you have to jump across a chasm and if you think about it too much, you don't.
-I am the only person through my thoughts that I turn away from nowhere to which I aspire.
-Man can do nothing unless he has first understood that he must not count on anyone but himself. Man is alone, abandoned on earth, in the midst of his infinite responsibilities and without help.
-What people who dedicate their lives to university and research should learn is to put all their effort into learning all the universal techniques for the service of mass society.
-It is only the acts that decide on what has been wanted.
-It is a deep boredom, very deep. The truth is that the deep heart of existence is the same thing that I am made of.
-The consciousness can always transcend the existing one, not towards its being, but towards the sense of this being.
-Many of men know, in effect, that the objective of their search is actually "being" and to the extent that they possess this knowledge, they avoid appropriating things for themselves and try to carry out the symbolic appropriation of "being -in-itself ”of things.
-Therefore, it makes no sense to think about complaining, because there is nothing strange that has been in charge of deciding what we feel, what we live or what we are.
-You can shut your mouth, cut your tongue, but can you avoid existing? The truth is that you can never stop your thoughts.
-Then this is the closest thing to hell. I would never have imagined it. Do you remember everything they told us about torture chambers, fire and brimstone? They are just old tales! There is no need to be a fan of red hot, hell is the other people!
-Many times, this is the reason that deceives people: The man who is capable of telling stories, can see everything that happens to him through them and tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But what you really have to do is choose: either you live or you count.
-I am going to answer the question that mortified you so much: my love, you are not just "one thing in my life", because my life no longer belongs to me. Now you are always me.
- At that moment, she smiled and told me with great emotion: "Shine like a tiny diamond" and try to turn you into an eternal being.
-Over time, we become a freedom that chooses, but only that chooses to be free. For that reason, we are condemned to freedom.
-You can never go back more than a disk can turn in reverse. What is the reason for everything that happens? Well, after much analysis, I realize that it has guided me to this moment.
-I felt so horribly lonely that I considered suicide. What stopped me from doing so was the idea that absolutely no one would mourn my death, and that at the end of the day, I would be even more alone in death than in life itself.
-The body is not linked to consciousness, it is a merely psychological perception.
-In the end, I am the architect of my own being, my own character and destiny. It is useless to pretend what could have been, because I am what I have done, and nothing more.
-Violence is not a means to an end, but a voluntary choice to reach the end, by any type of means.
-Helps other people understand that reality does count and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream.
-Sometimes you die too early or too late. However, all life is complete and full of emotions at that moment, remember to keep in mind that you are your life and nothing else.
-A flame is capable of calling in your heart. That's why I feel that when I am alone, I turn off
-I want you to know that it is a great job to start loving someone. You have to have character, kindness and also blindness. There is even a time when you have to jump over a cliff and if you think about it, you end up not doing it.
-For me there are no Mondays or Sundays: there are only days that go by in disorder and then we observe a sudden lightning like this.
-When an adventure happens to me, I wonder what happens to myself and why I am there, many times I end up as happy as the hero of a novel.
-There is a universe behind and in front of a book. You know that the end is near when you close the last book and ask yourself: And now, what comes?
-Anything else would be better than this anguish that I carry in my mind, this pain that bites and that never hurts enough.
-The main objective of language is to communicate to share with others the results that have been achieved.
-Man exists, appears and only later is he able to define himself, because at first, man is nothing, only later will he become something and he himself is the one who will be in charge of having done what he will do.
-I am always ready for sudden transformations because only after a wonderful day, can a real revolution occur.