841 Quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre

Words are loaded pistols.

We are now in a position to understand the anti-Semite. He is a man who is afraid. Not of the Jews, to be sure, but of himself, of his own consciousness, of his liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and of the world of everything except the Jews.

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe.

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

Existence is prior to essence.

I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands....I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed....He never looked at me again....I had the more difficulty getting rid of Him the Holy Ghost in that He had installed Himself at the back of my head....I collared the Holy Ghost in the cellar and threw Him out.

I exist. It is soft, so soft, so slow. And light: it seems as though it suspends in the air. It moves.

I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences.

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.