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
writing eye order
In the nineteenth century one had to give all sorts of guarantees and lead an exemplary life in order to cleanse oneself in the eyes of the bourgeois of the sin of writing, for literature is, in essence, heresy. The situation has not changed except that it is now the Communists, that is, the qualified representatives of the proletariat, who as a matter of principle regard the writer as suspect.
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.
writing simple thinking
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.
writing thinking long
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.
writing past men
Everything in my past, in my training, everything that has been most essential in my activity up to now has made me above all a man who writes, and it is too late for that to change.
writing portraits myth
Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.
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.