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I Distrust The Incommunicable; It Is The Source Of All Violence
-Jean-Paul Sartre
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I Distrust The Incommunicable;

Jean-Paul Sartre
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I Distrust The Incommunicable; It Is The Source Of All Violence

Understanding the Quote: "i distrust the incommunicable; it is the source of all violence..."

This quote by Jean-Paul Sartre reflects deeply on the theme of justice. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Justice, Violence, Source, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Jean-Paul Sartre interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre is celebrated for insightful thoughts on justice and violence. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Justice
Violence
Source
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I Say A Murder Is Abstract. You Pull The Trigger And After That You Do Not Understand Anything That Happens.
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As Long As The Writer Cannot Write For The Two Billion Men Who Are Hungry, He Will Be Oppressed By A Feeling Of Malaise.
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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.
Garden
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[stéphane Mallarmé] Theory Of The Hermetic Is A Mistake, But He Can Be Only Difficult To Read When He Has Difficult Things To Say.
Mistake
Theory
Difficult
You Take Souls For Vegetables.... The Gardener Can Decide What Will Become Of His Carrots But No One Can Choose The Good Of Others For Them.
Vegetables
Soul
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I Never Could Bear The Idea Of Anyone's Expecting Something From Me. It Always Made Me Want To Do Just The Opposite.
Opposites
Ideas
Expecting Something
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.
Men
Rooms
Impossible
I Discovered Suddenly That Alienation, Exploitation Of Man By Man, Under-nourishment, Relegated To The Background Metaphysical Evil Which Is A Luxury.
Men
Luxury
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Do You Think I Can Read [alain] Robbe-grillet In An Underdeveloped Country? He Does Not Feel Himself Maimed.
Country
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Once You Hear The Details Of Victory, It Is Hard To Distinguish It From A Defeat.
Deep Thought
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Details
Torture Is Senseless Violence, Born In Fear... Torture Costs Human Lives But Does Not Save Them. We Would Almost Be Too Lucky If These Crimes Were The Work Of Savages: The Truth Is That Torture Makes Torturers.
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If You Are Not Already Dead, Forgive. Rancor Is Heavy, It Is Worldly; Leave It On Earth: Die Light.
Light
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But I Must Finally Realize That I Am Subject To These Sudden Transformations. The Thing Is That I Rarely Think; A Crowd Of Small Metamorphoses Accumulate In Me Without My Noticing It, And Then, One Fine Day, A Veritable Revolution Takes Place.
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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.
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The [communist] Party Has One Objective: The Creation Of A Socialist Economy; And One Means: The Utilization Of The Class Struggle.
Party
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Besides One Should Not Believe That The People Only Want Reading That Is Easy To Absorb.
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Man Is Nothing Else But What He Purposes, He Exists Only In So Far As He Realizes Himself, He Is Therefore Nothing Else But The Sum Of His Actions, Nothing Else But What His Life Is.
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I Will Not Be Modest. Humble, As Much As You Like, But Not Modest. Modesty Is The Virtue Of The Lukewarm.
Humble
Modesty
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To Love Is Never Just To Love Since It Is Also To Will To Love, And ... To Love In Spite Of Oneself, To Allow Oneself To Be Overcome By One's Love.
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That God Does Not Exist, I Cannot Deny, That My Whole Being Cries Out For God I Cannot Forget.
Philosophical
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When We Love Animals And Children Too Much, We Love Them At The Expense Of Men.
Love
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I Can Always Choose, But I Ought To Know That If I Do Not Choose, I Am Still Choosing.
Stills
Ought
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We Will Freedom For Freedom’s Sake, In And Through Particular Circumstances. And In Thus Willing Freedom, We Discover That It Depends Entirely Upon The Freedom Of Others And That The Freedom Of Others Depends Upon Our Own. Obviously, Freedom As The Definition Of A Man Does Not Depend Upon Others, But As Soon As There Is A Commitment, I Am Obliged To Will The Liberty Of Others At The Same Time As My Own. I Cannot Make Liberty My Aim Unless I Make That Of Others Equally My Aim.
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All That I Know About My Life, It Seems, I Have Learned In Books.
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I Have Learned
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.
Judgement
May
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People Who Live In Society Have Learnt How To See Themselves, In Mirrors, As They Appear To Their Friends. I Have No Friends: Is That Why My Flesh Is So Naked?
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There Is A Universe Behind And Before Him. And The Day Is Approaching When Closing The Last Book On The Last Shelf On The Far Left; He Will Say To Himself, "now What?
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Lasts
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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.
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There May Be More Beautiful Times, But This One Is Ours.
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Freedom Is What You Do With What's Been Done To You.
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Be Quiet! Anyone Can Spit In My Face, And Call Me A Criminal And A Prostitute. But No One Has The Right To Judge My Remorse.
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I Said To Myself, 'i Want To Die Decently'.
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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.
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As For The Square At Meknes, Where I Used To Go Every Day, It's Even Simpler: I Do Not See It At All Anymore. All That Remains Is The Vague Feeling That It Was Charming, And These Five Words That Are Indivisibly Bound Together: A Charming Square At Meknes. ... I Don't See Anything Any More: I Can Search The Past In Vain, I Can Only Find These Scraps Of Images And I Am Not Sure What They Represent, Whether They Are Memories Or Just Fiction.
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Men
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It Is Meaningless That We Are Born, It Is Meaningless That We Die.
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L'homme Est Une Passion Inutile. Man Is A Useless Passion.
Passion
Men
Useless
It Is Not A Matter Of Indifference Whether We Like Oysters Or Clams, Snails Or Shrimp, If Only We Know How To Unravel The Existential Significance Of These Foods.
Oysters
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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.
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The Lad Who Dreams Of Being A Boxing Champion Or An Admiral Chooses Reality. If The Writer Chooses The Imaginary, He Confuses The Two.
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Three O'clock Is Always Too Late Or Too Early For Anything You Want To Do.
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We Must Act Out Passion Before We Can Feel It.
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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.
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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.
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Thrown Into The Atmosphere Of Action [in 1954], I Suddenly Understood The Kind Of Neurosis That Dominated All My Previous Work. I Had Not Been Able To Recognize It Before: I Was Inside. Simone De Beauvoir Had Guessed These Reasons Before I Did.
Atmosphere
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What Is Meant Here By Saying That Existence Precedes Essence? It Means First Of All, Man Exists, Turns Up, Appears On The Scene, And, Only Afterwards, Defines Himself. If Man, As The Existentialist Conceives Him, Is Indefinable, It Is Because At First He Is Nothing. Only Afterward Will He Be Something, And He Himself Will Have Made What He Will Be.
Mean
Men
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A Pale Reflection Of Myself Wavers In My Consciousness...and Suddenly The “i” Pales, Pales, And Fades Out.
Reflection
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A Lost Battle Is A Battle One Thinks One Has Lost.
Failure
Thinking
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Fear? If I Have Gained Anything By Damning Myself, It Is That I No Longer Have Anything To Fear.
Ifs
Perception Is Naturally Surpassed Toward Action; Better Yet, It Can Be Revealed Only In And Through Projects Of Action. The World Is Revealed As An "always Future Hollow", For We Are Always Future To Ourselves.
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It Is Disgusting -- Why Must We Have Bodies?
Body
Disgusting
Man Is Condemned To Be Free
Freedom
Philosophy
Philosophical
We Cannot Withdraw Our Cards From The Game. Were We As Silent And Mute As Stones, Our Very Passivity Would Be An Act.
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I Maintain That Inversion Is The Effect Of Neither A Prenatal Choice Nor An Endocrinal Malformation Nor Even The Passive And Determined Result Of Complexes. It Is An Outlet That A Child Discovers When He Is Suffocating.
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She Believed In Nothing; Only Her Skepticism Kept Her From Being An Atheist.
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Philosophical
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And I Too Wanted To Be. That Is All I Wanted; And This Is The Last Word. At The Bottom Of All These Attempts Which Seemed Without Bounds, I Find The Same Desire Again: To Drive Existence Out Of Me, To Rid The Passing Moments Of Their Fat, To Twist Them, Dry Them, Purify Myself, Harden Myself, To Give Back At Last The Sharp, Precise Sound Of A Saxophone Note. That Could Even Make An Apologue: There Was A Poor Man Who Got In The Wrong World.
Men
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Life Gave Me Everything I Asked If All I Asked Was Not A Great Deal, That's My Problem!
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Deals
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Book
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I Consider Les Nourritures Terrestres As A Frightening Book: "look For God In No Other Place Than Everywhere." Go And Tell That To A Workman, An Engineer!
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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.
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There Is No Human Nature, Since There Is No God To Conceive It.
Existentialism
Human Nature
There Is No God
I Have No Need For Good Souls: An Accomplice Is What I Wanted.
Philosophical
Soul
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A Writer Must Refuse To Allow Himself To Be Transformed Into An Institution.
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I Don't Know. Everything. Living. Smoking.
Smoking
Knows
I Entered The Communist Party Because Its Cause Was Just And I Will Leave It When It Ceases To Be Just.
Party
Causes
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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.
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Mirrors
Wonder
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I Do Not Understand! I Understand Nothing! I Cannot Understand Nor Do I Want To Understand! I Want To Believe! To Believe!
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Want
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Nothingness Haunts Being.
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Nothingness
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Ah! How I Hate The Crimes Of The New Generation: They Are Dry And Sterile As Darnel.
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Because The Nazi Venom Worked Its Way Even Into Our Thoughts, Every Accurate Thought Was A Conquest; Because An All-powerful Police Sought To Force Us Into Silence Every Word Became As Precious As A Declaration Of Principle; Because We Were Persecuted, Each Of Our Gestures Carried The Weight Of A Commitment.
Powerful
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Commitment Is An Act, Not A Word.
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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.
Lying
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Class
In Les Mots I Explain The Origin Of My Madness, Of My Neurosis. This Analysis May Help The Young Who Dream Of Writing.
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Writing
Analysis
Two People Can Form A Community By Excluding A Third.
Two
People
Community
So That Is What Hell Is. I Would Never Have Believed It. You Remember: The Fire And Brimstone, The Torture. Ah! The Farce. There Is No Need For Torture: Hell Is Other People.
Fire
People
Farce
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!
Children
Father
Men
It Is Only In Our Decisions That We Are Important.
Decision
Important
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.
Music
Hands
Giving
To Know What Life Is Worth You Have To Risk It Once In A While.
Inspirational
Risk
Life Is
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Imagination
Realizing
Consciousness
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.
Too Late
Lines
Existentialism
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.
People
Nausea
Reason
If You Are Lonely When You're Alone, You Are In Bad Company.
Inspirational
Wisdom
Lonely
[andre] Gide Can Say It To Me: It Is A Writer's Morality Only Addressed To A Few Privileged People. For That Reason It No Longer Interests Me.
People
Morality
Reason
Ah! Yes, I Know: Those Who See Me Rarely Trust My Word: I Must Look Too Intelligent To Keep It.
Trust
Philosophical
Intelligent
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Opposites
Needs
Biographies
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.
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Oil
White
Atheism Is A Cruel Long Term Business, And I Have Gone Through It To The End.
Long
Atheism
Gone
It Disturbs Me No More To Find Men Base, Unjust, Or Selfish Than To See Apes Mischievous, Wolves Savage, Or The Vulture Ravenous.
Selfish
Men
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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.
Thinking
Glasses
Hands
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.
Jobs
Passion
Thinking
Respectable Society Believed In God In Order To Avoid Having To Speak About Him.
God
Order
Speak
To Read A Poem In January Is As Lovely As To Go For A Walk In June
Summer
June
Lovely
What Do We Mean By Saying That Existence Precedes Essence? We Mean That Man First Of All Exists, Encounters Himself, Surges Up In The World-and Defines Himself Afterward.
Mean
Men
Essence
If You Begin By Saying, 'thou Shalt Not Lie,' There Is No Longer Any Possibility Of Political Action.
Lying
Political
Politics
I Think [alain Robbe-grillet] A Good Writer, But He Speaks To The Comfortable Bourgeoisie.
Thinking
Bourgeoisie
Speak
Some Men Are Born Committed To Action: They Do Not Have A Choice, They Have Been Thrown On A Path, At The End Of That Path, An Act Awaits Them, Their Act.
Men
Choices
Path
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.
Fear
Heart
Secret Places
Better To Have Beasts That Let Themselves Be Killed Than Men Who Run Away.
Running
Men
Running Away
Many Young People Today Do Not Concern Themselves With Style. They Think That What One Says Should Be Said Simply And That Is All. For Me, Style - Which Does Not Exclude Simplicity, Quite The Opposite - Is Above All A Way Of Saying Three Or Four Things In One. There Is The Simple Sentence, With Its Immediate Meaning, And Then At The Same Time, Below This Immediate Meaning, Other Meanings Are Organized. If One Is Not Capable Of Giving Language This Plurality Of Meaning, Then It Is Not Worth The Trouble To Write.
Writing
Simple
Thinking
Intellectuals Cannot Be Good Revolutionaries; They Are Just Good Enough To Be Assassins.
Assassins
Revolutionary
Enough
God Is Absence. God Is The Solitude Of Man.
Men
Solitude
Absence
Every Age Has Its Own Poetry; In Every Age The Circumstances Of History Choose A Nation, A Race, A Class To Take Up The Torch By Creating Situations That Can Be Expressed Or Transcended Only Through Poetry.
Birthday
Philosophy
Class
With A Little Luck That Epoch May Arrive. I Am On The Side Of Those Who Think That Things Will Go Better When The World Has Changed.
Thinking
Luck
May
Existence Is An Imperfection.
Imperfection
Existence
A Writer Who Takes Political, Social Or Literary Positions Must Act Only With The Means That Are His. These Means Are The Written Words.
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Political
Social
Night Is Falling: At Dusk, You Must Have Good Eyesight To Be Able To Tell The Good Lord From The Devil.
Fall
Night
Devil
When Rich People Fight Wars With One Another, Poor People Are The Ones To Die.
Philosophy
War
Philosophical
You See, The Contemporary Writer Must Write Through His Intimations Of Unease, While Trying To Elucidate Them.
Writing
Trying
Contemporary
Man Is Condemned To Be Free; Because Once Thrown Into The World, He Is Responsible For Everything He Does.
Life
Freedom
Responsibility
Listen To Me: A Family Man Is Never A Real Family Man. An Assassin Is Never Entirely Assassin. They Play A Role, You Understand. While A Dead Man, He Is Really Dead. To Be Or Not To Be, Right?
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Men
Play
In The State I Was In, If Someone Had Come And Told Me I Could Go Home Quietly, That They Would Leave Me My Life Whole, It Would Have Left Me Cold: Several Hours Or Several Years Of Waiting Is All The Same When You Have Lost The Illusion Of Being Eternal.
Home
Years
Waiting
This Desire [to Write] Is Rather Strange All The Same And Is Not Without A Certain "cracked" Quality.
Writing
Desire
Quality
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.
Thinking
May
Confession
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.
Fall
Men
Cities
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.
Party
Mean
Power
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.
Thinking
Self
Facts
My Thought Is Me: That's Why I Can't Stop. I Exist Because I Think… And I Can't Stop Myself From Thinking. At This Very Moment - It's Frightful - If I Exist, It Is Because I Am Horrified At Existing. I Am The One Who Pulls Myself From The Nothingness To Which I Aspire.
Thinking
Moments
My Thoughts
Every Human Endeavor, However Singular It Seems, Involves The Whole Human Race.
Race
Endeavor
Humans
Existence Is Not Something Which Lets Itself Be Thought Of Form A Distance; It Must Invade You Suddenly, Master You, Weigh Heavily On Your Heart Like A Great Motionless Beast - Or Else There Is Nothing At All.
Distance
Heart
Nausea
The Past Is The Luxury Of Proprietors.
Past
Luxury
If You Seek Authenticity For Authenticity's Sake You Are No Longer Authentic.
Sake
Authenticity
Ifs
The Form [of Literature] Matters Little To Me, Classical Or Not.
Littles
Matter
Literature
The Appearance Of The Other In The World Corresponds Therefore To A Congealed Sliding Of The Whole Universe.
World
Appearance
Whole
From The Period When I Wrote La Nausea I Wanted To Create A Morality. My Evolution Consists In My No Longer Dreaming Of Doing So.
Dream
Nausea
Morality
Man Is The Being Whose Project It Is To Be God.
Men
Projects
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.
War
Lasts
Should
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.
Artist
Color
Quality
Remember, Orestes: You Were Part Of My Herd, You Grazed In The Fields Along With My Sheep. Your Liberty Is Nothing But A Mange Eating Away At You, It Is Nothing But An Exile.
Sheep
Liberty
Fields
I Know Only One Church: It Is The Society Of Men.
Men
Church
Knows
Genius Is What A Man Invents When He Is Looking For A Way Out.
Men
Genius
Way
Everything That Exists Is Born For No Reason, Carries On Living Through Weakness, And Dies By Accident
Philosophical
Weakness
Reason
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.
Done
Trials
Way
Thus It Amounts To The Same Thing Whether One Gets Drunk Alone Or Is A Leader Of Nations.
Inspirational
Drunk
Leader
One Is Still What One Is Going To Cease To Be And Already What One Is Going To Become. One Lives One's Death, One Dies One's Life.
Death
Existence Of Life
Existentialism
We Do Not Judge The People We Love.
Love
People
Judging
It Is Better; Heavier, Crueler. The Mouth You Wear For Hell.
Mouths
Hell
No Exit
I Have Changed As Everyone Changes: Within A Permanency.
Changed
I Have Changed
So Long As One Believes In God, One Has The Right To Do The Good In Order To Be Moral.
Believe
Order
Long
Better A Good Journalist Than A Poor Assassin.
Assassins
Poor
Good Journalism
For An Occurrence To Become An Adventure, It Is Necessary And Sufficient For One To Recount It.
Travel
Adventure
Funny Travel
Introspection Is Always Retrospection
Human Nature
Introspection
There Is Only One Day Left, Always Starting Over: It Is Given To Us At Dawn And Taken Away From Us At Dusk.
Philosophical
Taken
Sunset
Everything Comes To Us From Others. To Be Is To Belong To Someone.
Love
True Love
Funny Marriage
Some Of These Days, Oh, You'll Miss Me Honey
Missing
Honey
Miss Me
We Are Now In A Position To Understand The Anti-semite. He Is A Man Who Is Afraid. Not Of The Jews, To Be Sure, But Of Himself, Of His Own Consciousness, Of His Liberty, Of His Instincts, Of His Responsibilities, Of Solitariness, Of Change, Of Society, And Of The World Of Everything Except The Jews.
Responsibility
Men
Liberty
It Answers The Question That Was Tormenting You: My Love, You Are Not 'one Thing In My Life' - Not Even The Most Important - Because My Life No Longer Belongs To Me Because...you Are Always Me.
Love You
Important
Answers
To Believe Is To Know You Believe, And To Know You Believe Is Not To Believe.
Spiritual
Atheist
Believe
The More Absurd Life Is, The More Insupportable Death Is.
Life Is
Absurd
One Of The Chief Motives Of Artistic Creation Is Certainly The Need Of Feeling That We Are Essential In Relationship To The World.
Motivation
Feelings
Essentials
I Am Myself And I Am Here.
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.
Christian
Atheist
Thinking
Existence Is Prior To Essence.
Essence
Existence
I Was Escaping From Nature And At Last Becoming Myself, That Other Whom I Was Aspiring To Be In The Eyes Of Others.
Nature
Eye
Escaping
When You Live Alone You No Longer Know What It Is To Tell A Story: The Plausible Disappears At The Same Time As The Friends. You Let Events Flow By Too: You Suddenly See People Appear Who Speak And Then Go Away; You Plunge Into Stories Of Which You Can't Make Head Or Tail: You'd Make A Terrible Witness.
Heads Or Tails
People
Going Away
The Universe Remains Dark. We Are Animals Struck By Catastrophe.
Dark
Animal
Catastrophe
The Absurd Man Will Not Commit Suicide; He Wants To Live, Without Relinquishing Any Of His Certainty, Without A Future, Without Hope, Without Illusions … And Without Resignation Either. He Stares At Death With Passionate Attention And This Fascination Liberates Him. He Experiences The “divine Irresponsibility” Of The Condemned Man.
Suicide
Men
Fascination
I'm Going To Smile, And My Smile Will Sink Down Into Your Pupils, And Heaven Knows What It Will Become.
Heaven
My Smile
Pupils
Man Is Fully Responsible For His Nature And His Choices.
Philosophical
Men
Choices
What Is Life But An Unpleasant Interruption To A Peaceful Nonexistence.
Peaceful
What Is Life
Interruptions
In Wanting Freedom We Discover That It Depends Entirely On The Freedom Of Others, And That The Freedom Of Others Depends On Ours. . . I Am Obliged To Want Others To Have Freedom At The Same Time That I Want My Own Freedom. I Can Take Freedom As My Goal Only If I Take That Of Others As A Goal As Well.
Goal
Want
Wells
In Any Case, If You Ever Leave Me With A Handsome Man, Do Not Tell Me That You Trust Me Because, Let Me Warn You: That Is Not What Will Prevent Me From Deceiving You, If I Want To. On The Contrary.
Men
Want
Handsome
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?
Country
Europe
Leader
I Am Not Virtuous. Our Sons Will Be If We Shed Enough Blood To Give Them The Right To Be.
Son
Blood
Giving
I Wanted The Moments Of My Life To Follow And Order Themselves Like Those Of A Life Remembered. You Might As Well Try And Catch Time By The Tail.
Order
Trying
Tails
A Good Hanging Now And Then -- That Entertains Folk In The Provinces And Robs Death Of Its Glamour.
Now And Then
Glamour
Folks
What I See Is Teeming Cohesion, Contained Dispersal... For Him, To Sculpt Is To Take The Fat Off Space.
Space
Sculpture
Cohesion
Every Word Has Consequences. Every Silence, Too.
Silence
Consequence
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.
Support
Individuality
Depth
Outside Nature, Against Nature, Without Excuse, Beyond Remedy, Except What Remedy I Find Within Myself.
Excuse
Remedy
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.
Art
Philosophy
Men
The World Would Get Along Very Well Without Literature. It Would Get Along Even Better Without Man.
Men
Literature
World
Life Has No Meaning The Moment You Lose The Illusion Of Being Eternal.
Life
Existentialism
Moments
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.
Generosity
Giving
Want
Hell Is Other People At Breakfast.
Food
People
Breakfast
Ah! Do Not Judge The Gods, Young Man, They Have Painful Secrets.
Men
Judging
Secret
I Receive Letters From Workers, From Secretaries. . . . They Are The Most Interesting Ones.
Interesting
Letters
Workers
A Madman's Ravings Are Absurd In Relation To The Situation In Which He Finds Himself, But Not In Relation To His Madness.
Madness
Absurd
Relation
Is There Really Nothing, Nothing Left Of Me?
Left
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.
Peace
War
Community
Life Is Nothing Until It Is Lived; But It Is Yours To Make Sense Of, And The Of It Is Nothing Other Than The Sense You Choose.
Art
Philosophy
History
Several Hours Or Several Years Make No Difference Once You Have Lost Eternity.
Years
Differences
Hours
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.
Giving
Up To You
Life Has No Meaning
All I Can Do Is Make The Best Of What I Am, Become Accustomed To It, Evaluate The Possibilities, And Take Advantage Of Them The Best I Can.
Possibility
Advantage
Accustomed
Photographs Are Not Ideas. They Give Us Ideas.
Ideas
Giving
Photograph
Man Is Not The Sum Of What He Has Already, But Rather The Sum Of What He Does Not Yet Have, Of What He Could Have.
Men
Doe
Man Is Abandoned On Earth In The Midst Of His Infinite Responsibilities, Without Help, With No Aim But What He Sets Himself.
Art
Philosophy
Responsibility
It Is Therefore Senseless To Think Of Complaining Since Nothing Foreign Has Decided What We Feel, What We Live, Or What We Are.
Philosophy
Thinking
Complaining
I Have Always Been An Optimist, Perhaps Even Too Much.
Too Much
Optimist
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