The 90 best phrases of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was a French philosopher and writer famous for his ideas on the existentialism and humanist Marxism.
The particular way of seeing Sartre's life and his ideas about humanist Marxism, make this writer a very controversial person of the first half of the 20th century. He was married to the also philosopher, author and feminist Simone de Beauvoir.
Great phrases by Jean-Paul Sartre
We should all (if we don't already) know a little more about this fantastic figure, What were the best phrases of Jean-Paul Sartre? We show them below.
1. If you feel lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.
How we relate to ourselves is very important in life.
2. Today we know how everything is done except living.
Discovering what life we want to lead and how to achieve it is something that we all pursue in life.
3. It is solely up to you to give your life meaning.
Finding a purpose for living is something that only concerns us.
4. To know what our life is worth, it does not hurt to risk it from time to time.
When we are aware of how easy it is to lose life, we value it much more.
5. We are but our own decisions.
The decisions we make are what makes us move forward or backward on the path of life.
6. Life begins on the other side of despair.
In the most difficult situations is where we find ourselves.
7. There is no reality except in action.
Actions are what is totally real in life, words may or may not be true.
8. Man is condemned to be free, since once in the world, he is responsible for all his actions.
What we each do with our own life depends only on us, freedom is given to us by our actions and thoughts.
9. Life is nothing but a useless passion.
Knowing how to approach life in a positive way depends only on ourselves, do we really want to be happy?
10. Words are loaded pistols.
With our words we can do a lot of harm to the people we live with, we can demolish their morale or enhance it with them.
11. In love, one and one equals one.
When we form a couple we become a single individual within society, we act and live in a kind of symbiosis seeking to achieve the same common purpose.
12. It seems that everything I know about my life I have learned from books.
Books are a very powerful source of knowledge that we all should and can take advantage of.
13. 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.
A very romantic phrase to be able to convey to our loved one the importance that he has for us.
14. It is more dangerous to be a good journalist than a bad murderer.
Some professions put their lives much more at risk than others, Sartre had this peculiar way of seeing journalism.
15. Commitment is an act, not a word.
To demonstrate the commitment we have towards someone we must do it with our actions, not with our words.
16. It may be unavoidable. We may actually have to choose between being nothing or pretending to be.
We must know ourselves and know what we are looking for in life, that way, we can start the path towards our personal goals.
17. 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.
We will never know what will happen tomorrow, we must not anticipate events, everything can happen.
18. Once freedom has enlightened the heart of man, the gods have no power over him.
For Jean-Paul Sartre, religion was something with which he actively disagreed.
19. It is the duty of every individual, to do what he wants to do, to think what he wants to think, not to answer to anyone except himself, and to question every idea and every individual.
We must have our own ideas and be free to think what we choose to think for ourselves.
20. Existence is prior to essence, and rules over it.
An appointment that leads us to think about our own existence and our own personal essence, first I think, then I exist.
21. When you understand the details of victory, it is difficult to distinguish it from defeat.
On many occasions to achieve the desired victory we will suffer losses from which we will never recover.
22. Your judgment judges you and defines you.
Our personal judgment communicates to others what our principles and loyalties are.
23. Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you.
We usually use free time to enjoy what is most familiar to us.
24. Like all dreamers, I confused disappointment with truth.
Although they disappoint us, that does not mean that it is the only truth, the truth can be seen in many different ways, even in ways that it is not true.
25. I will smile, and my smile will penetrate your pupils. And God knows what he will become.
We must seek our personal happiness in everything we do in life.
26. When the rich go to war, it is the poor who die.
Social classes make a crucial difference in how people live their own lives, in an equitable world this shouldn't happen.
27. Why is it so important that we all agree?
We can all think totally differently and for this reason we should not enter into any kind of conflict, we must respect each other.
28. Three o'clock is always too late or too early for what you want to do.
We must take advantage of every minute of our life, it is always a good time to do what we really want to do.
29. Life has no a priori meaning. The meaning of your life depends on you, and the value of your life is nothing but the meaning you choose.
It is up to each of us to endow our life with the meaning that we choose for it.
30. Soft, smiling faces everywhere, but doom in their looks.
People do not normally show their true intentions in public.
31. I guess it's laziness that makes the world the same day after day.
We should all propose what goals we want to achieve in life, to later try to achieve them.
32. Only the one who is not moving forward has time to bother.
In many cases, the biggest criticism we receive is covered by a veil of anonymity.
33. I exist, that's all. And I find it extremely unpleasant.
It depends on us how our own life is, we must face it with a positive attitude.
34. Existence is an imperfection.
The mere fact of existing in itself is a miracle, the probability that life occurs in the universe is very remote.
35. 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?
The people around us can, with their comments, change the opinion we have of ourselves.
36. Nothing happens while we live. The scene changes, people come and go. That is all.
Time can sometimes seem somewhat tedious, life moves inexorably towards our own decline.
37. At the moment of death, our life is always complete.
Everything that we have not done before our own death we will never be able to do it.
38. The consciousness that says "I exist" is not the consciousness that thinks.
To exist in a true way we must first think, we must not get carried away by the bustle of society.
39. 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. Giving is possessively enjoying what is given.
Without any doubt Jean-Paul Sartre had a very particular opinion about generosity, sharing it or not will depend on us.
40. No finite term makes sense without an infinite point of reference.
Indeed, just as there is the finite term, for this to occur we must also contemplate the idea of infinity.
41. You are getting closer and closer to becoming the corpse you will be and even so, I still love you.
As the years go by, our love for the person we truly love will never cease to exist.
42. Starting to love someone is like starting 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.
Personal relationships can be very complicated and when starting one, many times we must make concessions to our partner.
43. Man can do nothing unless he has first realized that he must have no one but himself. Man is alone, abandoned on earth, in the midst of his infinite responsibilities and without his help.
In this quote, Sartre reveals his null belief in religions and his authentic faith in the tangible.
44. It is only the acts that decide on what has been wanted.
Our actions will guide us through life, with them we will decide our future.
45. Consciousness can always transcend the existing one, not towards its being, but towards the sense of this being.
With consciousness, people make contact with our own existence, by reasoning we can realize that we really exist.
46. Therefore, it does not make any 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.
How we face our life depends on us and complaining will not solve anything.
47. So 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!
With our actions we can turn the world into a real hell, people are capable of the best and the worst.
48. I'm 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.
With love, people consecrate our lives to other people, our happiness will be the happiness of both and our pain will be the pain of both.
49. Over time, we become a freedom that chooses, but only chooses to be free. For that reason, we are condemned to freedom.
Freedom is an inalienable right of all people and we must fight so that this is always the case.
50. 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.
With suicide, many people try to harm others, but if nobody cares about your life, that damage will never be done and in that case suicide stops making sense.
51. 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.
The life we live depends on us, our actions and our non-actions will dictate who we are.
52. Help other people understand that reality does count and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream.
We must all try to fulfill our dreams because the purpose of these is their fulfillment.
53. A flame is capable of calling in your heart. That is why I feel that when I am alone, I turn off.
Loneliness is something that can do us a lot of emotional damage, people are made to live in society.
54. For me there are no Mondays or Sundays: there are only days that go by in disorder and then we see a sudden lightning bolt like this.
Regardless of the day of the week we are on, we can actually live our life as we want to live it.
55. 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?
Books are like windows to a parallel universe that when we finish it we want to continue knowing about it.
56. The main objective of language is to communicate to share with others the results that have been achieved.
Language is a gift that the human being has and that allows him to carry out extremely complicated tasks.
57. I am always open to sudden transformations because only after a wonderful day can a real revolution occur.
Those things that we live change and mold us in such a way that we constantly evolve.
58. Man exists, appears, and only later is he able to define himself, because at first, man he is nothing, only later will he become something and he himself is the one who will take care of having done what he will do.
Our actions and thoughts are what define us as people, before them our vital canvas is blank.
59. Anything else would be better than this anguish that I carry in my mind, this pain that bites and that never hurts enough.
We all go through very hard or difficult emotional times and how we deal with them is up to us.
60. 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.
Sometimes we have very emotional moments in our lives that we will probably always remember.
61. 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.
62. The world could very well exist without literature, it is even better without man.
People are not necessary for the functioning of the world, the planet could even benefit from our disappearance.
63. Violence is not a means to an end, but a voluntary choice to reach the end, by any kind of means.
There are times when men decide to use violence to achieve their goals at all costs.
64. The body is not united to the conscience, it is a purely psychological perception.
A very controversial quote from Jean Paul Sartre could the body live without consciousness?
65. You can never go back more than a disk can reverse. What is the reason for everything that happens? Well, after much analysis, I realize that he has guided me up to this moment.
We cannot go back in time, it only flows in one direction. Everything we do in life will take us to the moment where we are.
66. At that moment, she smiled and told me with great emotion: "He shines like a tiny diamond" and tries to turn you into an eternal being.
The support we receive from our loved ones helps us to continue advancing on our personal path.
67. Many times, this is the reason people are deceived: The man who is able to tell stories, can see everything that happens to him through them and tries to live his own life as if he were telling a history. But what you really have to do is choose: either you live or you count.
To take advantage of our life one hundred percent we must fight to achieve our goals, not fantasize hoping that one day they will be realized as if by magic.
68. You can shut your mouth, cut your tongue, but can you avoid existing? The truth is that you can never stop your thoughts.
Silencing our thoughts is very complicated, meditation bases its main idea on that moment of mental peace.
69. Many of the men know, in effect, that the objective of their search is actually "being" and to the extent that they possess this knowledge, avoid appropriating things by themselves and try to carry out the symbolic appropriation of the "being-in-itself" of the stuff.
A very interesting quote about our own perception of who we are or who we want to be.
70. 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.
A very poetic quote in which Jean-Paul Sartre meditates on his own existence.
71. What people who dedicate their lives to university and research should learn is to put all your effort in learning all the universal techniques for the service of the society of masses.
We should all strive to achieve the greatest common good, our happiness depends largely on the happiness of others.
72. I am the only person through my thoughts that I turn away from nowhere to which I aspire.
As if it were a reflex action, our thoughts will not stop flowing no matter how hard we try to stop them.
73. 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 is it so important to think the same things all together?
Unconsciously we all seek the approval of others, and therefore we modify our thoughts to be more related to those around us.
74. Politics is a science. With it you can show that you are right and that others are wrong.
No one has absolute reason, we all have different points of view provided by our personal experiences and ways of being.
75. 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 matter how much money we have, we can feel very poor, because poverty is not only material, it can also be spiritual.
76. We do not judge the people we love.
When we love someone, they seem perfect just the way they are.
77. Man is not so much the sum of what he has, but rather the sum of what he does not have; than he could have.
To really know a man we must know his personal shortcomings and motivations.
78. There is no beginning of anything. The days pile up one after the other without order or concert. An endless monotonous addition of days.
The days pass one after another and giving them a meaning depends on us, otherwise they will all seem the same as the previous one.
79. Man is condemned to be free because he did not create himself, but he was put into this world.
Living beings are free by nature, the concept of freedom is a totally human concept. Humans are the only beings who deprive another living being of their freedom.
80. Not being tied to my own words makes my thoughts blurry most of the time. That is why I forget them almost immediately.
When we have very long conversations or write for a long time, we can forget much of what we have spoken or written.
81. We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are. That's the truth.
It is up to us to discover what we want in life and how we want to get there.
82. I cannot deny that God does not exist. But neither can I forget that my whole existence cries out for a god.
No one can correctly verify whether God exists or not, both options are on the table.
83. The most unpleasant thing about evil is that it gets used to it.
People can eventually become immunized against the emotions of others, it is because This means that the greatest atrocities in history have been carried out with the approval of many persons.
84. By wanting freedom, we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others.
In order to be entirely free, those around us must be free as well.
85. Forget you? How immature! I feel you in my bones. Your silence deafens me.
There are certain people in our lives that we can never forget, because they have marked us with their actions and emotions.
86. Man will not be able to do anything of value until he understands that he cannot count on anyone except himself.
Our greatest support or detractor will always be ourselves, we must know ourselves and use all our qualities.
87. When someone has expected something from me, I have always wanted to do just the opposite.
We should expect from others the same as we would in their situation, in this way we will be honest with ourselves.
88. Man is alone, abandoned on Earth, in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other objective than the one he proposes.
How we live our lives depends only on us, we can be something positive for others or not, everything will depend on what we want to do.
89. I have seen that the human heart is empty and tasteless everywhere except in books.
Reading is a very positive habit that we must practice and encourage, with it we can grow a lot on a personal and intellectual level.
90. I hate victims who respect their executioners.
When we respect our executioners we give them to understand that we are above their ideas and actions, that our spiritual freedom can never be taken away from us.