216 quotes
Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.
Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being.
Being and Nothingness (1943)
Only a neutral, who is indifferent to the stake and perhaps to all stakes, can appreciate aesthetically the grandeur of a fine disaster
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
I can be twenty women, one hundred, if that's what you want, all women. Ride with me behind you, I weigh nothing, your horse will not feel me. I want to be your whorehouse!
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
You must be afraid, my son. That is how one becomes an honest citizen.
The Flies (1943)
When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
I believe (Che Guevara) was not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age.
I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just.
Dirty Hands (1948)
I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me.
Dirty Hands (1948)
"Everything is both a trap and a display; the secret reality of the object is what the Other makes of it."
Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)
Blood doubly unites us, for we share the same blood and we have spilled blood.
The Flies (1943)
Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them...there is nothing.
Be quiet! Anyone can spit in my face, and call me a criminal and a prostitute. But no one has the right to judge my remorse.
The Flies (1943)
Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
Nausea (1938)
Suppose that I wish to deserve the title of "robber of remorse" and that I place in myself all [the townspeople's] repentence?
The Flies (1943)
He wanted to assume his entire condition, to carry the world on his shoulders and to become, in defiance of all, what all have made of him.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living.
Dirty Hands (1948)
Lord, you have cursed Cain and Cain's children: thy will be done. You have allowed men's hearts to be corrupted, that their intentions be rotten, that their actions putrefy and stink: thy will be done.
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free. They are free, Aegisthus. You know it, but they do not.