Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes

It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.

The world in which we were called to exist was an absurd world, and there was no other in which we could take refuge.

[F]or academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit.

I stick my finger into existence.. it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? What is this thing called the world? What does this word mean?

The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.

L'absurde est la notion essentielle et la premie' re ve? rite? . The absurd is the fundamental idea and the first truth.

There is no justice, there is no rational structure to it [life]. That is just the way it is, and each person figures out some way to cope.

The absolute has moved into the fortress of the absurd.

I am not a logician. I am an existentialist. I believe in this meaningless, beautiful chaos of existence, and I am ready to go with it wherever it leads.

Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?" "Because they're real." "How do you know?" "The one I was holding crapped on my hand.

From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.

They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

The world's a puzzle; no need to make sense out of it." - Socrates

Enough to know no knowing.

The old man always said we should attend to the things we have some hope of understanding, and eternity isn't one of them. Well, this world isn't one either.

We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.

...but that was the thing about reality. It didn't need to make sense.

It does not matter whether you have religion or are an agnostic believe in nothing, You can only appreciate (without knowing or understanding) the mysteries of life.

If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.

He would conclude that nothing was real except chance.

Someone asked me once what my philosophy of life was, and I said some crazy thing. I should have said, how the hell do I know?

pain is absurd because it exists, nothing more.

Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.

The real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand.