841 Quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre

Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence.

So it comes to this; one doesn’t need rest. Why bother about sleep if one isn’t sleepy? That stands to reason, doesn’t it? Wait a minute, there’s a snag somewhere; something disagreeable. Why, now, should it be disagreeable? …Ah, I see; it’s life without a break.

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June

We do not wish to say only that a man is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for that of all men.

You see, I'm fond of teasing, it's a second nature with me—and I'm used to teasing myself. Plaguing myself, if you prefer; I don't tease nicely.

Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. [It is a matter of choice, not chance.] Such is the first principle of existentialism.

Photographs are not ideas. They give us ideas.

Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all.

I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.