Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (1905–80) was a French philosopher, novelist, playwright, and critic. The principal exponent of existentialism, his work dealt with the nature of human life and the structures of consciousness. He ranks as the most versatile writer and as a towering influence on three decades of French intellectual life.

Born in Paris, Sartre was a first cousin to Albert Schweitzer. Sartre entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1924, where he met the novelist Simone de Beauvoir. She became his lifetime romantic and intellectual companion.

After finishing mandatory military service, Sartre took a teaching job in Le Havre and wrote his first novel, La Nausée (1938; Nausea.) Judged by some the century’s most influential French novel, La Nausée depicts man adrift in a godless universe, hostage to his angst-ridden freedom.

Sartre was one of the French intellectuals who openly resisted the Nazi occupation of France. He spent a year as a prisoner of war during World War II. After this, he wrote his first major work in philosophy, L’êtreet le Néant (1943; Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology.)

Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism (i.e., each person is responsible for his actions and their consequences) is rooted in his dramatic works. He turned to playwriting and produced a series of theatrical successes which are necessarily dramatizations of his philosophical ideas: Les mains sales (1948; Dirty Hands,) Le diable et le bon dieu (1957; The Devil and the Good Lord,) and Les Séquestrés d’Altona (1959; The Condemned of Altona.)

Sartre also wrote the comedies La putain respectueuse (1946; The Respectful Prostitute,) Kean (1954,) and Nekrassov (1955) and the three-volume novel, Les Chemins de la Liberté (1945–49; The Roads to Freedom.) In 1960, Sartre returned to philosophy, publishing the first volume of his Critique de la raison dialectique (1960; Critique of Dialectical Reason,) an amendment of his existentialism through Marxist ideas.

Sartre also wrote major studies of literary figures and many essays. He was awarded and rejected the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. When he died in 1980, some 50,000 people turned out on the streets of Paris to pay their respects.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Jean-Paul Sartre

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Truth

Man is a useless passion.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Humankind, Humanity

The writer is committed when he plunges to the very depths of himself with the intent to disclose, not his individuality, but his person in the complex society that conditions and supports him.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Writers

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
Jean-Paul Sartre

We cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and mute as stones, our very passivity would be an act.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Life

We must act out passion before we can feel it.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Passion

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Existence

Words are loaded pistols.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Words

Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.
Jean-Paul Sartre

All human actions are equivalent… and all are on principle doomed to failure.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Action

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Responsibility, Men

Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Violence

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Authors & Writing

It is not right, my fellow-countrymen, you who know very well all the crimes committed in our name, it
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Violence

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Defeat

Hell is other people.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Hell

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Possibilities

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Action

It is only in our decisions that we are important.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Decisions

If literature isn’t everything, it’s not worth a single hour of someone’s trouble.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Books, Literature

So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the burning marl. Old wives’ tales!There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS—OTHER PEOPLE!
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Hell

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Generosity

The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Generosity

Never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a “talent” my sole concern has been to save myself by work and faith.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Talent

Life begins on the other side of despair.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Adversity, Perseverance, Difficulties, Resolve, Happiness, Endurance, Despair

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Life and Living

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Freedom

Friendship doesn’t exist to criticize but to inspire confidence.
Jean-Paul Sartre

We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: Carpe-diem

If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Topics: One liners, Loneliness, Miscellaneous

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