216 quotes
Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.
Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
L’important n’est pas ce qu’on fait de nous mais ce que nous faisons nous-même de ce qu’on a fait de nous.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
But, if it will help ease your irritated souls, please know, dearly departed, that you have ruined our lives.
The Flies (1943)
For Genet, Beauty will be the offensive weapon that will enable him to beat the just on their own ground: that of value.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him.
The Words (1964)
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.
The Words (1964)
The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.
Dirty Hands (1948)
The [Communist] Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle.
Dirty Hands (1948)
Since he is unable to be the beloved, he will become the lover.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.
Anti-Semite and Jew (1945)
Your church is a whore: she sells her favors to the rich.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
He is dead, and my hatred has died with him.
The Flies (1943)
A man who is free is like a mangy sheep in a herd. He will contaminate my entire kingdom and ruin my work.
The Flies (1943)
One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
In doing Good, I lose myself in Being, I abandon my particularity, I become a universal subject.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.
The Flies (1943)
I hate victims who respect their executioners.
What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards.
Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)