Existentialism is no mournful delectation but a humanist philosophy of action, effort, combat, and solidarity. Man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines say what this man is before he dies, or what mankind is before it has disappeared.

L'existentialiste, au contraire, pense qu'il est très gênant que Dieu n'existe pas, car avec lui disparaît toute possibilité de trouver des valeurs dans un ciel intelligible; il ne peut plus y avoir de bien a priori, puisqu'il n'y a pas de conscience infinie et parfaite pour le penser; il n'est écrit nulle part que le bien existe, qu'il faut être honnête, qu'il ne faut pas mentir, puisque précisément nous sommes sur un plan où il y a seulement des hommes.

Existentialism's first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him.

[E]very man ought to say to himself, "Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?

Hiçbir şey değişmedi, ama yine de her şey başka bir biçimde var olup gidiyor. Anlatamıyorum. Bulantıya benziyor bu, ama aynı zamanda onun tam tersi.

İnsanın kendi yüzünü anlayabilmesi belki de elinde değil. Belki de tek başıma yaşadığım için böyle oluyor. Topluluk içinde yaşayanlar, kendilerini, arkadaşlarına nasıl görünüyorlarsa aynalarda tıpkı öyle görmeyi öğrenmişlerdir. Benim arkadaşım yok. Tenimin bunca çıplak olması acaba bu yüzden mi? Buna insansız... evet insansız doğa denilebilir.

I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me,and I have followed the source of rivers towards theirsource or plunged into forests, always making for othercities. I have had women, I have fought with men ; andI could never turn back any more than a record can spinin reverse. And all that was leading me where ?To this very moment...

My existence began to worry me seriously. Was I not a simple spectre?

Revolutionary man must be a contingent being, unjustifiable but free, entirely immersed in the society that oppresses him, but capable of transcending this society by his effort to change it. Idealism mystifies him in that it binds him by rights and values that are already given; it conceals from him his power to devise roads of his own. But materialism also mystifies him, by depriving him of his freedom. The revolutionary philosophy must be a philosophy of transcendence.