Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Jean-Paul Sartre

Quote by Jean-Paul Sartre

“I murmur: "It's a seat," a little like an exorcism. But the word stays on my lips: it refuses to go and put itself on the thing. It stays what it is, with its red plush, thousands of little red paws in the air, all still, little dead paws. This enormous belly turned upward, bleeding, inflated—bloated with all its dead paws, this belly floating in this car, in this grey sky, is not a seat. It could just as well be a dead donkey tossed about in the water, floating with the current, belly in the air in a great grey river, a river of floods; and I could be sitting on the donkey's belly, my feet dangling in the clear water.”

Quote by Jean-Paul Sartre

Book:Nausea

Work

Nausea

In this seminal work, the protagonist grapples with the meaninglessness of existence and the absurdity of everyday life, leading to a profound exploration of the human condition. more

Author

Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre was a French philosopher, writer, and playwright, born on June 21, 1905, and died on April 15, 1980. He is considered one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, renowned for his existentialist philosophy. Sartre's works spanned across philosophy, literature, and drama, and had a profound impact on later generations. more

You May Also Like

“The wisdom to be on the throne of one’s life must surpass the wisdom of the one being ruled, otherwise I will squander the whole of my life in the most appalling ways. By virtue of that reality, I would be wise to get out of the chair and invite God to have a seat.”

“Imagine that every time you want to leave the house you have to get into a bar fight with someone. A sloppy, exhausted, poorly choreographed display of slapping and kicking. You are in a bar fight because they don't want to be strapped, Hannibal Lecter style, into the back of your car. Fair. Even thought you are technically big enough to always win the fight, you still have to buckle a small but shockingly heavy person at a 45 degree angle - possibly in the burning sun or freezing cold or driving rain - into a chair. All the while vaguely recalling the warning that if the buckles are not in the exact right place then the whole point of putting them in the seat is moot and you've ruined everything. If the straps are not tight enough, or if they are too tight, you might as well just throw your kid on the roof of the car untethered to anything and drive off at a million miles per hour because it's all basically the same effect.”