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For Common Minds Have An Ugly Ability To Perceive In The Deepest And Richest Saying Nothing But Their Own Everyday Opinion.

-Jean-Paul Sartre

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For Common Minds Have

Jean-Paul Sartre

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For Common Minds Have An Ugly Ability To Perceive In The Deepest And Richest Saying Nothing But Their Own Everyday Opinion.

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It Is Enough That One Man Hate Another For Hate To Gain, Little By Little, All Mankind.

I'm Going To Smile, And My Smile Will Sink Down Into Your Pupils, And Heaven Knows What It Will Become.

Total War Is No Longer War Waged By All Members Of One National Community Against All Those Of Another. It Is Total... Because It May Well Involve The Whole World.

I Am. I Am, I Exist, I Think, Therefore I Am; I Am Because I Think, Why Do I Think? I Don't Want To Think Any More, I Am Because I Think That I Don't Want To Be, I Think That I . . . Because . . . Ugh!

I Entered The Communist Party Because Its Cause Was Just And I Will Leave It When It Ceases To Be Just.

Existence Is An Imperfection.

What Do You Want To Do With The [communist] Party? A Racing Stable? What Good Is It To Sharpen A Knife Every Day If You Never Useit For Slicing? A Party Is Never More Than A Means. There Is Only One Objective: Power.

What Is Boredom? It Is When There Is Simultaneously Too Much And Not Enough.

Yes, I Am So Free. And What A Superb Absence Is My Soul.

I Needed To Justify My Existence, And I Had Made An Absolute Of Literature. It Took Me Thirty Years To Get Rid Of This State Of Mind.

For An Occurrence To Become An Adventure, It Is Necessary And Sufficient For One To Recount It.

I Have No Need For Good Souls: An Accomplice Is What I Wanted.

It Would Be Much Better If I Could Only Stop Thinking. Thoughts Are The Dullest Things. Duller Than Flesh. They Stretch Out And There's No End To Them And They Leave A Funny Taste In The Mouth. Then There Are Words, Inside The Thoughts, Unfinished Words, A Sketchy Sentence Which Constantly Returns...it Goes, It Goes ... And There's No End To It. It's Worse Than The Rest Because I Feel Responsible And Have Complicity In It. For Example, This Sort Of Painful Rumination: I Exist, I Am The One Who Keeps It Up. I.

I Wrote In Les Mots That "i Have Often Thought Against Myself." That Sentence Has Not Been Understood Either. Critics Have Seen In It A Confession Of Masochism. But That Is How One Should Think: Revolting Against Everything "inculcated'' That One May Have Within Oneself.

There Is No Love Apart From The Deeds Of Love; No Potentiality Of Love Other Than That Which Is Manifested In Loving.

Do You Think I Can Read [alain] Robbe-grillet In An Underdeveloped Country? He Does Not Feel Himself Maimed.

My Thought Is Me: That Is Why I Cannot Stop Thinking. I Exist Because I Think I Cannot Keep From Thinking.

I Am Not Recommending "popular" Literature Which Aims At The Lowest.

Popular Literature

I Have Always Been An Optimist, Perhaps Even Too Much.

Freedom Is Existence, And In It Existence Precedes Essence.

There Is No Salvation Anywhere. The Idea Of Salvation Implies The Idea Of An Absolute.

If Literature Isn't Everything, It's Not Worth A Single Hour Of Someone's Trouble.

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.

I Say A Murder Is Abstract. You Pull The Trigger And After That You Do Not Understand Anything That Happens.

God Is The Solitude Of Men. There Was Only Me: I Alone Decided To Commit Evil; Alone, I Invented Good. I Am The One Who Cheated, I Am The One Who Performed Miracles, I Am The One Accusing Myself Today, I Alone Can Absolve Myself; Me, The Man.

I Have Always Been Happy. Even If I Had Been More Honest With Regard To Myself At That Moment I Should Still Have Written La Nausee.

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.

If I Relegate Impossible Salvation To The Prop Room, What Remains? A Whole Man, Composed Of All Men And As Good As All Of Them And No Better Than Any.

The Past Is The Luxury Of Proprietors.

There Is Only One Day Left, Always Starting Over: It Is Given To Us At Dawn And Taken Away From Us At Dusk.

The Way, Applicable In Our Non-revolutionary Societies, To Prepare For The Time When Everyone Will Read, Is To Pose Problems In The Most Radical And Intransigent Manner. This Is What Alain Badiou Has Just Done In Almagestes, Where He Puts Language On Trial With An Intention Of Cleansing, Of Catharsis.

Never Have I Thought That I Was The Happy Possessor Of A "talent;" My Sole Concern Has Been To Save Myself By Work And Faith.

Life Gave Me Everything I Asked If All I Asked Was Not A Great Deal, That's My Problem!

I Felt Myself In A Solitude So Frightful That I Contemplated Suicide. What Held Me Back Was The Idea That No One, Absolutely No One, Would Be Moved By My Death, That I Would Be Even More Alone In Death Than In Life.

I Enjoy Feeling Fastidious And Aloof. I Enjoy Saying No, Always No, And I Should Be Afraid Of Any Attempt To Construct A Finally Habitable World, Because I Should Merely Have To Say - Yes; And Act Like Other People.

[contemporary Writer] Could Be A Kind Of [samuel] Beckett Who Would Not Be Felt To Be Totally Committed To Despair.

Everything Has Been Figured Out, Except How To Live.

I Am Neither Virgin Nor Priest Enough To Play With The Inner Life.

Ah! How I Hate The Crimes Of The New Generation: They Are Dry And Sterile As Darnel.

Consciousness Is A Being The Nature Of Which Is To Be Conscious Of The Nothingness Of Its Being.

Nothing Happens While You Live. The Scenery Changes, People Come In And Go Out, That's All. There Are No Beginnings. Days Are Tacked On To Days Without Rhyme Or Reason, An Interminable, Monotonous Addition.

In Order To Make Myself Recognized By The Other, I Must Risk My Own Life. To Risk One's Life, In Fact, Is To Reveal Oneself As Not-bound To The Objective Form Or To Any Determined Existence — As Not-bound To Life.

Objects Should Not Touch Because They Are Not Alive. You Use Them, Put Them Back In Place, You Live Among Them: They Are Useful, Nothing More. But They Touch Me, It Is Unbearable. I Am Afraid Of Being In Contact With Them As Though They Were Living Beasts.

We Only Become What We Are By The Radical And Deep-seated Refusal Of That Which Others Have Made Of Us.

You See, I'm Fond Of Teasing, It's A Second Nature With Me—and I'm Used To Teasing Myself. Plaguing Myself, If You Prefer; I Don't Tease Nicely.

One Always Dies Too Soon Or Too Late. And Yet, Life Is There, Finished: The Line Is Drawn, And It Must All Be Added Up. You Are Nothing Other Than Your Life.

The Individual's Duty Is To Do What He Wants To Do, To Think Whatever He Likes, To Be Accountable To No One But Himself, To Challenge Every Idea And Every Person.

It Is Not Right, My Fellow-countrymen, You Who Know Very Well All The Crimes Committed In Our Name. It's Not At All Right That You Do Not Breathe A Word About Them To Anyone, Not Even To Your Own Soul, For Fear Of Having To Stand In Judgment Of Yourself. I Am Willing To Believe That At The Beginning You Did Not Realize What Was Happening; Later, You Doubted Whether Such Things Could Be True; But Now You Know, And Still You Hold Your Tongues.

Then I Realized What Separated Us: What I Thought About Him Could Not Reach Him; It Was Psychology, The Kind They Write About In Books. But His Judgment Went Through Me Like A Sword And Questioned My Very Right To Exist. And It Was True, I Had Always Realized It; I Hadn't The Right To Exist. I Had Appeared By Chance, I Existed Like A Stone, A Plant Or A Microbe. My Life Put Out Feelers Towards Small Pleasures In Every Direction. Sometimes It Sent Out Vague Signals; At Other Times I Felt Nothing More Than A Harmless Buzzing.

He Loves Me, He Doesn't Love My Bowels, If They Showed Him My Appendix In A Glass He Wouldn't Recognize It, He's Always Feeling Me, But If They Put The Glass In His Hands He Wouldn't Touch It, He Wouldn't Think, "that's Hers," You Ought To Love All Of Somebody, The Esophagus, The Liver, The Intestines. Maybe We Don't Love Them Because We Aren't Used To Them, But If We Saw Them The Way We Saw Our Hands And Arms Maybe We'd Love Them; The Starfish Must Love Each Other Better Than We Do.

In A Word, Man Must Create His Own Essence: It Is In Throwing Himself Into The World, Suffering There, Struggling There, That He Gradually Defines Himself.

I Want To Leave, To Go Somewhere Where I Should Be Really In My Place, Where I Would Fit In . . . But My Place Is Nowhere; I Am Unwanted.

One Cannot Become A Saint When One Works Sixteen Hours A Day.

A Writer Must Refuse To Allow Himself To Be Transformed Into An Institution, Even If It Takes Place In The Most Honorable Form.

You Know How Much I Admire Che Guevara. In Fact, I Believe That The Man Was Not Only An Intellectual But Also The Most Complete Human Being Of Our Age: As A Fighter And As A Man, As A Theoretician Who Was Able To Further The Cause Of Revolution By Drawing His Theories From His Personal Experience In Battle.

Man Exists, Turns Up, Appears On The Scene And Only Afterwards, Defines Himself

I Admire [samuel] Beckett, But I Am Totally Against Him. He Seeks No Improvement.

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.

You Must Be Afraid, My Son. That Is How One Becomes An Honest Citizen.

The Universe Remains Dark. We Are Animals Struck By Catastrophe.

The Worst Part About Being Lied To Is Knowing You Werent Worth The Truth

When She Is Alone In The Rooms I Hear Her Humming To Keep Herself From Thinking.

When One Does Nothing, One Believes Oneself Responsible For Everything.

I Do Not Feel That I Am The Product Of Chance, A Speck Of Dust In The Universe, But Someone Who Was Expected, Prepared, Prefigured. In Short, A Being Whom Only A Creator Could Put Here; And This Idea Of A Creating Hand Refers To God.

Once Liberty Has Exploded In The Soul Of A Man, The Gods Can Do Nothing Against That Man.

The Best Work Is Not What Is Most Difficult For You; It Is What You Do Best.

All That I Know About My Life, It Seems, I Have Learned In Books.

What's Done At Night Belongs To The Night. In The Daytime You Don't Talk About It.

I Should Wish [alain Robbe-grillet] To Realize That Guinea Exists.

It Is Disgusting -- Why Must We Have Bodies?

Man Must Be Invented Each Day

I Was Not The One To Invent Lies: They Were Created In A Society Divided By Class And Each Of Us Inherited Lies When We Were Born. It Is Not By Refusing To Lie That We Will Abolish Lies: It Is By Eradicating Class By Any Means Necessary.

When Rich People Fight Wars With One Another, Poor People Are The Ones To Die.

What The Painter Adds To The Canvas Are The Days Of His Life. The Adventure Of Living, Hurtling Toward Death.

For The Time Being I Have Seen Enough Of Living Things, Of Dogs, Of Men, Of All Flabby Masses Which Move Spontaneously.

If A Jew Is Fascinated By Christians It Is Not Because Of Their Virtues, Which He Values Little, But Because They Represent Anonymity, Humanity Without Race.

When One Loves Animals And Children Too Much, One Loves Them Against Human Beings.

Life Is A Useless Passion.

This Then Is The Age Of Reason.

Nicias, Do You Think You Can Erase With Good Deeds The Wrongs You Committed Against Your Mother? What Good Deed Will Ever Reach Her? Her Soul Is A Scorching Noon Time, Without A Single Breath Of A Breeze, Nothing Moves, Nothing Changes, Nothing Lives There; A Great Emaciated Sun, An Immobile Sun Eternally Consumes Her.

A Man Is Involved In Life, Leaves His Impress On It, And Outside Of That There Is Nothing.

Fear? If I Have Gained Anything By Damning Myself, It Is That I No Longer Have Anything To Fear.

Nothingness Haunts Being.

Our Responsibility Is Much Greater Than We Might Have Supposed, Because It Involves All Mankind.

Being Is. Being Is In-itself. Being Is What It Is.

Meaning Of Life

If I Did Not Publish This Autobiography [les Mots] Sooner And In Its Most Radical Form, It Is Because I Considered It Exaggerated.

Let It Crumble! Let The Rocks Revile Me And Flowers Wilt At My Coming. Your Whole Universe Is Not Enough To Prove Me Wrong. You Are The King Of Gods, King Of Stones And Stars, King Of The Waves Of The Sea. But You Are Not The King Of Man.

For The Artist, The Color, The Bouquet, The Tinkling Of The Spoon On The Saucer, Are Things In The Highest Degree. He Stops At The Quality Of The Sound Or The Form. He Returns To It Constantly And Is Enchanted With It.

It Is Always More Valuable To Report The Truth.

I Believe, I Desire, That Social And Economic Ills May Be Remedied.

Man Is Nothing Else But What He Makes Of Himself.

I Am Not Asking For Sensational Revelations, But I Would Like To Sense The Meaning Of That Minute, To Feel It's Urgency.

I Committed The First Crime By Creating Men As Mortals. After That, What More Could You Do, You The Murderers? Come On; They Already Had Death In Them: At Most You Simply Hastened Things A Little.

Night Is Falling: At Dusk, You Must Have Good Eyesight To Be Able To Tell The Good Lord From The Devil.

She Believed In Nothing; Only Her Skepticism Kept Her From Being An Atheist.

I Am Responsible For Everything... Except My Very Responsibility.

There Are Two Kinds Of Existentialist; First, Those Who Are Christian...and On The Other Hand The Atheistic Existentialists, Among Whom...i Class Myself. What They Have In Common Is That They Think That Existence Precedes Essence, Or, If You Prefer, That Subjectivity Must Be The Turning Point.

So Much Torture, Bloodshed, Deceit. You Cannot Make Your Young People Practice Torture Twenty-four Hours A Day And Not Expect To Pay A Price For It.

Hell Is Other People At Breakfast.

Don't You Feel The Same Way? When I Cannot See Myself, Even Though I Touch Myself, I Wonder If I Really Exist.

This [service To Oppressed] Is The Writer's Task, And, If He Fulfills It As He Should, He Acquires No Merit From It.

Things Are Entirely What They Appear To Be And Behind Them... There Is Nothing.

You See, The Contemporary Writer Must Write Through His Intimations Of Unease, While Trying To Elucidate Them.

We Are Possessed By The Things We Possess. When I Like An Object, I Always Give It To Someone. It Isn't Generosity-it's Only Because I Want Others To Be Enslaved By Objects, Not Me.

Uncalled-for Aggression Arouses The Hatred Of The Civilian Population.

I Am A Man, Jupiter, And Each Man Must Invent His Own Path.

Love Or Hatred Calls For Self-surrender. He Cuts A Fine Figure, The Warm-blooded, Prosperous Man, Solidly Entrenched In His Well-being, Who One Fine Day Surrenders All To Love—or To Hatred; Himself, His House, His Land, His Memories.

Your Judgement Judges You And Defines You

To Whomever Gives A Kiss Or A Blow Render A Kiss Or Blow But To Whomever Gives When You Are Unable To Return Offer All The Hatred In Your Heart For You Were Slaves And He Enslaves You

That’s What Existence Means: Draining One’s Own Self Dry Without The Sense Of Thirst.

I Hate Victims Who Respect Their Executioners.

Because We Can Imagine, We Are Free.

The Writer Is Committed When He Plunges To The Very Depths Of Himself With The Intent To Disclose, Not His Individuality, But His Person In The Complex Society That Conditions And Supports Him.

Every Word Has Consequences. Every Silence, Too.

Everything Comes To Us From Others. To Be Is To Belong To Someone.

Sometimes The Truth Is Too Simple For Intellectuals.

There Were Days When You Peered Into Yourself, Into The Secret Places Of Your Heart, And What You Saw There Made You Faint With Horror. And Then, Next Day, You Didn't Know What To Make Of It,you Couldn't Interpret The Horror You Had Glimpsed The Day Before. Yes, You Know What Evil Costs.

A Pale Reflection Of Myself Wavers In My Consciousness...and Suddenly The “i” Pales, Pales, And Fades Out.

If You Begin By Saying, 'thou Shalt Not Lie,' There Is No Longer Any Possibility Of Political Action.

Before You Come Alive, Life Is Nothing; It 's Up To You To Give It A Meaning, And Value Is Nothing Else But The Meaning That You Choose.

Life Has No Meaning

Better To Have Beasts That Let Themselves Be Killed Than Men Who Run Away.

For The Moment, The Jazz Is Playing; There Is No Melody, Just Notes, A Myriad Tiny Tremors. The Notes Know No Rest, An Inflexibleorder Gives Birth To Them Then Destroys Them, Without Ever Leaving Them The Chance To Recuperate And Exist For Themselves.... I Would Like To Hole Them Back, But I Know That, If I Succeeded In Stooping One, There Would Only Remain In May Hand A Corrupt And Languishing Sound. I Must Accept Their Death; I Must Even Want That Death: I Know Of Few More Bitter Or Intense Impressions.

I Distrust The Incommunicable; It Is The Source Of All Violence

I Don't Know. Everything. Living. Smoking.

I Never Could Bear The Idea Of Anyone's Expecting Something From Me. It Always Made Me Want To Do Just The Opposite.

Expecting Something

In A Country Lacking Leaders, In Africa, For Instance, How Could A Native Educated In Europe Refuse To Become A Professor, Even At The Price Of His Literary Vocation?

He Who Asks A Question Is A Fool For A Minute; He Who Does Not Remains A Fool Forever. When You Realize That By Changing Your Perspective, Big Things Can Be Seen As Little Things, It Becomes Much Harder To Worry About Anything. Commitment Is An Act, Not A Word.

One Can Ask Why The I Has To Appear In The Cogito {descartes’ Argument “i Think Therefore I Am.}, Since The Cogito, If Used Rightly, Is The Awareness Of Pure Consciousness, Not Directed At Any Fact Or Action. In Fact The I Is Not Necessary Here, Since It Is Never United Directly To Consciousness. One Can Even Imagine A Pure And Self-aware Consciousness Which Thinks Of Itself As Impersonal Spontaneity.

The Coward Makes Himself Cowardly, The Hero Makes Himself Heroic.

Perhaps Its Inevitable, Perhaps One Has To Choose Between Being Nothing At All And Impersonating What One Is.

All The Same, They [books] Do Serve Some Purpose. Culture Doesn't Save Anything Or Anyone, It Doesn't Justify. But It's A Product Of Man: He Projects Himself Into It, He Recognizes Himself In It; That Critical Mirror Alone Offers Him His Image.

I Wanted My Own Words. But The Ones I Use Have Dragged Through I Don't Know How Many Consciences.

I Discovered Suddenly That Alienation, Exploitation Of Man By Man, Under-nourishment, Relegated To The Background Metaphysical Evil Which Is A Luxury.

We Do Not Wish To Say Only That A Man Is Responsible For His Own Individuality, But That He Is Responsible For That Of All Men.

I Said To Myself, 'i Want To Die Decently'.

I Think Of Death Only With Tranquility, As An End. I Refuse To Let Death Hamper Life. Death Must Enter Life Only To Define It.

An Individual Chooses And Makes Himself.

Man Is Always Separated From What He Is By All The Breadth Of The Being Which He Is Not. He Makes Himself Known To Himself From The Other Side Of The World And He Looks From The Horizon Toward Himself To Recover His Inner Being.

You Are -- Your Life, And Nothing Else.

I'd Come To Realize That All Our Troubles Spring From Our Failure To Use Plain, Clear-cut Language.

Therefore, In The Nature Of This Will For Freedom, Which Freedom Itself Implies, I May Pass Judgement On Those Who Seek To Hide From Themselves The Complete Arbitrariness And The Complete Freedom Of Their Existence.

Man Is Condemned To Be Free

Through The Lack Of Attaching Myself To Words, My Thoughts Remain Nebulous Most Of The Time. They Sketch Vague, Pleasant Shapes And Then Are Swallowed Up; I Forget Them Almost Immediately.

Once We Know And Are Aware, We Are Responsible For Our Action And Our Inaction. We Can Do Something About It Or Ignore It. Either Way, We Are Still Responsible.

The Poor Don't Know That Their Function In Life Is To Exercise Our Generosity.

In Life Man Commits Himself And Draws His Own Portrait, Outside Of Which There Is Nothing. No Doubt This Thought May Seem Harsh To Someone Who Has Not Made A Success Of His Life. But On The Other Hand, It Helps People To Understand That Reality Alone Counts, And That Dreams, Expectations And Hopes Only Serve To Define A Man As A Broken Dream, Aborted Hopes, And Futile Expectations.

Intellectuals Cannot Be Good Revolutionaries; They Are Just Good Enough To Be Assassins.

To Eat Is To Appropriate By Destruction.

Smooth And Smiling Faces Everywhere, But Ruin In Their Eyes.

At That Time [1954], As A Result Of Political Events, I Was Deeply Preoccupied By My Relations With The Communist Party.

I Had Been Playing With Matches And Burned A Small Rug. I Was In The Process Of Covering Up My Crime When Suddenly God Saw Me. I Felt His Gaze Inside My Head And On My Hands....i Flew Into A Rage Against So Crude An Indiscretion, I Blasphemed....he Never Looked At Me Again....i Had The More Difficulty Getting Rid Of Him The Holy Ghost In That He Had Installed Himself At The Back Of My Head....i Collared The Holy Ghost In The Cellar And Threw Him Out.

There Is No Book Of Mine That I Reject. That Does Not Mean That I Find Them Good.

Your Scare Me Rather. My Reflection In The Glass Never Did That; Of Course, I Knew It So Well. Like Something I Had Tamed...i'm Going To Smile, And My Smile Will Sink Down Into Your Pupils, And Heaven Knows What It Will Become.

A Man Who Is Free Is Like A Mangy Sheep In A Herd. He Will Contaminate My Entire Kingdom And Ruin My Work.

[stéphane Mallarmé] Theory Of The Hermetic Is A Mistake, But He Can Be Only Difficult To Read When He Has Difficult Things To Say.

I Had Found My Religion: Nothing Seemed More Important To Me Than A Book. I Saw The Library As A Temple.

Aegistheus, The Kings Have Another Secret.... Once Liberty Has Exploded In The Soul Of A Man, The Gods Can Do Nothing Against That Man. It Is A Matter For Men To Handle Amongst Themselves, And It Is Up To Other Men And To Them Alone To Let Him Flee Or To Destroy Him.

I Grow Warm, I Begin To Feel Happy. There Is Nothing Extraordinary In This, It Is A Small Happiness Of Nausea: It Spreads At The Bottom Of The Viscous Puddle, At The Bottom Of Out Time - The Time Of Purple Suspenders, And Broken Chair Seats; It Is Made Of White, Soft Instants, Spreading At The Edge, Like An Oil Stain. No Sooner Than Born, It Is Already Old, It Seems As Though I Have Known It For Twenty Years.

It's Just What People Do When They're Getting Old, When They're Sick Of Themselves And Their Life; They Think Of Money And Take Care Of Themselves.

There It Is: I Am Gently Slipping Into The Water's Depths, Towards Fear.

We Make Our Own Hell Out Of The People Around Us.

To Know What Life Is Worth You Have To Risk It Once In A While.

We Do Not Judge The People We Love.

The Painful Secret Of Gods And Kings Is That Men Are Free, Aegistheus. You Know It And They Do Not.

So It Comes To This; One Doesn’t Need Rest. Why Bother About Sleep If One Isn’t Sleepy? That Stands To Reason, Doesn’t It? Wait A Minute, There’s A Snag Somewhere; Something Disagreeable. Why, Now, Should It Be Disagreeable? …ah, I See; It’s Life Without A Break.

Anything, Anything Would Be Better Than This Agony Of Mind, This Creeping Pain That Gnaws And Fumbles And Caresses One And Never Hurts Quite Enough.

A Man Is Always A Teller Of Tales, He Lives Surrounded By His Stories And The Stories Of Others, He Sees Everything That Happens To Him Through Them; And He Tries To Live His Life As If He Were Recounting It.

Fascism Is Not Defined By The Number Of Its Victims, But By The Way It Kills Them.

Take [stéphane] Mallarme. I Hold Him To Be The Greatest Of French Poets, And I Have Taken Some Time To Understand Him !

The Plight Of Modern Man Is That He Is Condemmed To Be Free.

God Is Dead. Let Us Not Understand By This That He Does Not Exist Or Even That He No Longer Exists. He Is Dead. He Spoke To Us And Is Silent. We No Longer Have Anything But His Cadaver. Perhaps He Slipped Out Of The World, Somewhere Else Like The Soul Of A Dead Man. Perhaps He Was Only A Dream...god Is Dead.

Generosity Is Nothing Else Than A Craze To Possess. All Which I Abandon, All Which I Give, I Enjoy In A Higher Manner Through The Fact That I Give It Away. To Give Is To Enjoy Possessively The Object Which One Gives.

Two People Can Form A Community By Excluding A Third.

For Forty Years I Was Conscripted By The Absolute, The Neurosis. The Absolute Is Gone. There Remain Countless Tasks Among Which Literature Is In No Way Privileged.

I Have Changed As Everyone Changes: Within A Permanency.

I Have No Religion, But If I Were To Choose One, It Would Be That Of Shariati's.

Everything Is Gratuitous, This Garden, This City And Myself. When You Suddenly Realize It, It Makes You Feel Sick And Everything Begins To Drift . . . That's Nausea.

There Are Two Types Of Poor People, Those Who Are Poor Together And Those Who Are Poor Alone. The First Are The True Poor, The Others Are Rich People Out Of Luck.

We Are Our Choices.

What Do I Care About Jupiter? Justice Is A Human Issue, And I Do Not Need A God To Teach It To Me.

One Does Not Adopt A New Idea, One Slips Into It.

When The Rich [and Politically Powerful] Make War, It's The Poor [and Politically Weak] Who Die.

Man Is Always A Wizard To Man, And The Social World Is At First Magical.

That Of War And Peace Or Of Almagestes. All Are Satisfactory. The Only Criterion Of A Work Is Its Validity: That It Should Grip And That It Should Last.

I Think That Is The Big Danger In Keeping A Diary: You Exaggerate Everything.

To Think New Thoughts You Have To Break The Bones In Your Head

The Aim Of Language...is To Communicate...to Impart To Others The Results One Has Obtained...as I Talk, I Reveal The Situation...i Reveal It To Myself And To Others In Order To Change It.

Nothingness Lies Coiled In The Heart Of Being - Like A Worm.

Il N'y A Pas D'autre Univers Qu'un Univers Humain, L'univers De La Subjectivite Humaine. There Is No Other Universe Except The Human Universe, The Universe Of Human Subjectivity.

To Believe Is To Know You Believe, And To Know You Believe Is Not To Believe.

It Was Odd, He Thought, That A Man Could Hate Himself As Though He Were Someone Else.

I Have Crossed The Seas, I Have Left Cities Behind Me, And I Have Followed The Source Of Rivers Towards Their Source Or Plunged Into Forests, Always Making For Other Cities. I Have Had Women, I Have Fought With Men ; And I Could Never Turn Back Any More Than A Record Can Spin In Reverse. And All That Was Leading Me Where ? To This Very Moment.

Words There Is No Good Father, That's The Rule. Don't Lay The Blame On Men But On The Bond Of Paternity, Which Is Rotten. To Beget Children, Nothing Better; To Have Them, What Iniquity!

Il N'y A De Réalité Que Dans L'action. (there Is No Reality Except In Action.)

The Appearance Of The Other In The World Corresponds Therefore To A Congealed Sliding Of The Whole Universe.

I Know. I Know That I Shall Never Again Meet Anything Or Anybody Who Will Inspire Me With Passion. You Know, It's Quite A Job Starting To Love Somebody. You Have To Have Energy, Generosity, Blindness. There Is Even A Moment, In The Very Beginning, When You Have To Jump Across A Precipice: If You Think About It You Don't Do It. I Know I'll Never Jump Again.

We Do Not Know What We Want And Yet We Are Responsible For What We Are - That Is The Fact.

As Long As The Writer Cannot Write For The Two Billion Men Who Are Hungry, He Will Be Oppressed By A Feeling Of Malaise.

For Common Minds Have An Ugly Ability To Perceive In The Deepest And Richest Saying Nothing But Their Own Everyday Opinion.

Understand Me: I Wish To Be A Man From Somewhere, A Man Among Men. You See, A Slave, When He Passes By, Weary And Surly, Carrying A Heavy Load, Limping Along And Looking Down At His Feet, Only At His Feet To Avoid Falling Down; He Is In His Town, Like A Leaf In Greenery, Like A Tree In A Forest, Argos Surrounds Him, Heavy And Warm, Full Of Herself; I Want To Be That Slave, Electra, I Want To Pull The City Around Me And To Roll Myself Up In It Like A Blanket. I Will Not Leave.

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