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The existentialist says the coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic; and that there is always a possibility for the coward to give up cowardice and for the hero to stop being a hero. What counts is the total commitment, and it is not by a particular case or particular action that you are committed altogether.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

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Philosophy

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 →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

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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.