Skip to content

With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.

— Jean-Paul Sartre Characterizations of Existentialism (1944)

Another quote →

More quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre

I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)

Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it.

Nausea (1938)

For those who want 'to change life", 'to reinvent love,' God is nothing but a hindrance.

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

All Jean-Paul Sartre quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean-Paul Sartre (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.