Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul-Charles-Aymard Sartrewas a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 June 1905
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
book writing psychology
Then I realized what separated us: what I thought about him could not reach him; it was psychology, the kind they write about in books. But his judgment went through me like a sword and questioned my very right to exist. And it was true, I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put out feelers towards small pleasures in every direction. Sometimes it sent out vague signals; at other times I felt nothing more than a harmless buzzing.
book heart empty
I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.
book men mirrors
All the same, they [books] do serve some purpose. Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image.
philosophical book i-have-learned
All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.
book lasts shelves
There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what?
book library important
I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.
assumed cannot choose choosing constitute disability fact means necessary obstacle revealed suffer surpass
Even this disability from which I suffer I have assumed by the very fact that I live; I surpass ittoward my own projects, I make of it the necessary obstacle for my being and I cannot be crippledwithout choosing myself as crippled. This means that I choose the way I constitute my disability (as'unbearable', 'humiliating, 'to be hidden', 'to be revealed to all').
choice condemned free
I am condemned to freedom. I am not free because I can make choices, but because I must make them, all the time, even when I think I have no choice to make.
abandoned alone bear compelled engaged except foundation responsibility suddenly takes tear therefore whatever
I am responsible for everything except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in the world... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.
confuse dreamers truth
Like all dreamers I confuse disenchantment with truth.
french-philosopher illusion life loose meaning moment
Life has no meaning the moment you loose the illusion of being eternal.
appears defines existence himself man means meant precedes saying thrust toward turns wills
What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. ... Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence.Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
french-philosopher longer
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
support individuality depth
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.