Jean-Paul Sartre is a French writer, philosopher, playwright, publicist and teacher. One of the representatives of the philosophical trend of existentialism in the post-war period. 1964 Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature. Quotes and aphorisms by Jean-Paul Sartre are known to many people who have never even read his most popular works.
Philosopher's Biography
Jean-Paul Sartre was born on June 21, 1905 in Paris. After graduating from the Lyceum and the Higher Normal School, he defended his thesis on philosophy and trained at the French Institute in Berlin. For some time he worked as a teacher of philosophy in lyceums, in 1944 he decided to finally devote himself to theoretical philosophy and literary work.
He founded the magazine "New Times" along with Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merlot-Ponti. He took an active part in the public life of France in the post-war period, because of the views of Sartre, his apartment was blown up twice by terrorists, and the editorial staff of the magazine was captured five times by French nationalists.
He died in 1980 from pulmonary edema. About fifty thousand fans gathered to guide the writer on his last journey.
Sartre's Philosophy
The basic tenets of the philosophical concept of existentialists in general and Sartre in particular are freedom, alienation, and dialectics. The writer thought a lot about freedom. He had in mind precisely freedom of choice, which no one is able to take away from a person. Thanks to constant choice, a person creates his own destiny without relying on higher powers or blind chance. One of Jean-Paul Sartre's most famous quotes is:
Man is doomed to freedom.
According to Sartre, it is a person who, through his activities, gives meaning to the whole world around him, with inaction, human existence is completely meaningless and empty. Another famous quote by Jean-Paul Sartre:
The meaning of life does not exist, I will have to create it myself!
By alienation, the writer understands the absolute facelessness and lack of individuality in the life of a modern person. Its entire existence is determined by social institutions and material values. On this subject, Sartre once said the following:
A man consists of all people. He is equal to them all, and they are all equal to him.
In general, the philosophy of the writer is not very cheerful outlook on the world. In support of this, here are some well-known quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre:
A person has a hole the size of God in his soul, and everyone fills it as best he can.
The difference between a person and an animal is that a person can commit suicide.
The world would do well without literature; even better would he do without a man.
"Nausea"
The 1938 novel "Nausea" is perhaps the most famous and, according to many literary critics, Sartre's most successful work as a writer. At the center of the work is a young man named Antoine, who suddenly becomes disgusted with his entire existence, he is tormented by hopelessness, loneliness, the absurdity of human existence itself and the degradation of the world.
The protagonist of the novel ponders a lot about time as a phenomenon, and one of the most famous quotes in Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea is about this topic:
Three hours. Three hours is always too late or too early for everything that you are going to do. Strange time of the day.
Another, more abstract quote about time :
Time is too long, you can’t fill it. What you can’t lower into it, everything softens and stretches.
Another excerpt from Antoine's thoughts, where time is somehow mentioned:
I know that a quarter of an hour will be enough for me to reach an extreme degree of self-loathing.
In "Nausea" you can find many quotes describing the state of apathy, depression and a sharp change of mood in the negative direction.
Tuesday. Nothing new. Existed.
All that exists is born without cause, continues for lack of strength, and dies by chance.
I am free: in my life there is no longer any sense - everything that I tried to live for has collapsed, but I can’t think of anything else.
However, it is foolish to consider Nausea an exceptionally depressing and depressing work. In his special manner, the writer reflects on the nature of human happiness, and in the novel you can find a couple of quite motivating quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre:
Any of the coming minutes may be the moment of your death, and knowing this, you are able to smile. Well, isn't that admirable?
First you need to find yourself in some exceptional circumstances, and then feel that you bring order to them. If these conditions are met, the moment becomes perfect.
In the days of the declaration of war, strangers hug each other; with the coming of spring, they squander smiles at each other.
Creative Quotes
Jean-Paul Sartre was extremely successful as a writer, but he was always skeptical of this activity, devoting almost less time to writing artwork than working on philosophical articles and essays. His negative attitude to any kind of awards is also known; he refused the Nobel Prize in literature or the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 1964, he completely stopped his literary activity, as he came to the point of view that this was only a surrogate for a real change in the world.
However, there are many quite witty quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre about the creative process:
Older writers usually do not like the too zealous praise of their first work.
My best book is the one I'm working on.
Silence is an authentic form of word. Only one who is able to say something is silent.
Quotes about love
Sartre's personal life has always been a subject of discussion among the Parisian elite, as he has been married for many years to a famous philosopher, the leader of the feminism movement in France and his colleague in the magazine New Times Simone de Beauvoir. In addition, the couple practiced loose relationships and was categorically against monogamy.
It is not surprising that quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre about love may seem unusual to many:
He repeatedly and twice declared his desire to marry - to anyone, but not to her.
Love has nothing to do with possession. Its highest manifestation is to provide freedom.
The lover requires an oath and is annoyed by her. He wants to be loved by freedom and demands that this freedom as freedom would no longer be free.
Other famous quotes
This section contains the writer's statements that cannot be attributed to a specific topic, but they are known to many people who do not even know the name of their author:
Hell is others.
We cannot tear out a page from our life, although we can easily throw the book itself into the fire.
You are always responsible for what you did not try to prevent.
It is forbidden to forbid!
If you are bored alone with yourself, then you are in a bad society.
Smart people are not evil; anger implies limitation.
Quotes about Sartre
Jean-Paul was one of the most prominent philosophers, writers and publicists of his time, who spawned many imitators, playing a prominent role in the public life of France. When he was detained during student riots in Paris in 1968, Charles de Gaulle personally ordered the release of Sartre, saying the famous phrase:
France Voltaire does not plant!
Thus, the leader of the French people appreciated the importance of Sartre for the country's culture and world philosophy.
However, not all contemporaries and descendants were positive. Boris Vian introduced the character-parody of Sartre into his novel “Foam of Days”, and Victor Pelevin, seventeen years after the death of the philosopher, spoke of him this way:
No wonder Jean-Paul Sartre said: "Hell is others." These are truly amazing words - it rarely happens that such an amount of truth can be squeezed into a single sentence. However, despite all its depth, this maxim is not sufficiently developed. In order for it to find its final fullness, it must be added that Jean-Paul Sartre is also hell.
Like any prominent cultural figure, Jean-Paul Sartre can cause a different attitude, but it is unlikely that anyone will be able to deny his extraordinary mind and literary talent.