Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenExistentialismIfsThinkingExistencePhilosophicalKnowsPeopleWorldNauseaWantExistentialPhilosophyDoeLifeWayWritingGivingHellHumans

Famous Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes

“It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns...It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I.”

IfsThinkingFeelsEndsWould BeExampleReturnTasteMouthsResponsiblePainfulSentencesFleshIf I CouldUnfinishedComplicityRuminationSketchy
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
Create image

“I think there is an enormous diference between speaking and writing. One rereads what one writes. But one might read it slowly or quickly. In other words, you do not know how long you will have to spend deliberating over a sentence. ... But if I listen to a tape recorder, the listening time is determined by the speed at which the tape turns and not by my own needs.”

IfsThinkingKnowsNeedsWritingLongMightTurnsMy OwnKnow HowListeningDeterminedSentencesSpeedEnormousTapeRecordersSpeaking And Writing
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
Create image

“Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayGivingShouldWritingDoeSaidTodayYoungThreeLanguageSimpleFourTroubleStyleCapableConcernOppositesSimplicitySentencesOrganized
Book:Sartre in the Seventies: Interviews and Essays
Create image

“One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity.”

IfsThinkingSelfFactsActionUsedAsksUnitedConsciousnessImagineAwarenessPureArgumentSpontaneity
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
Create image

“[M]an is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, in other respect 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.”

ThinkingMenWorldBelieveDoeCertainPassionResponsibleAgreeExcuseThrownSweepingExistentialist
Book:The Philosophy of Existentialism: Selected Essays
Create image

“I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me — and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.”

ThinkingLittlesStillsLightLyingWaterSweetLowsMouthsCome UpTongueThroatPoolBrushesCaressGrazing
Author:Jean-Paul Sartre
Create image

“He loves me, he doesn't love my bowels, if they showed him my appendix in a glass he wouldn't recognize it, he's always feeling me, but if they put the glass in his hands he wouldn't touch it, he wouldn't think, "that's hers," you ought to love all of somebody, the esophagus, the liver, the intestines. Maybe we don't love them because we aren't used to them, but if we saw them the way we saw our hands and arms maybe we'd love them; the starfish must love each other better than we do.”

IfsThinkingWayFeelingsHandsUsedSawsArmsOughtGlassesLove Each OtherLiverBowelsIntestinesAppendixStarfish
Book:The Wall: (Intimacy) and Other Stories
Create image

“I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMomentsJobsPassionEnergyInspireStartingGenerosityExistentialismBlindnessPrecipiceNausea
Book:Nausea
Create image