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They are in bad faith — they are afraid — and fear, bad faith have an aroma that the gods find delicious. Yes, the gods like that, the pitiful souls.

— Jean-Paul Sartre The Flies (1943)

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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)

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Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Colin Wilson Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."

Jonathan Edwards Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

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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.