Background Image
...
You Must Be Afraid, My Son. That Is How One Becomes An Honest Citizen.
-Jean-Paul Sartre
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

You Must Be Afraid,

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

Understanding the Quote: "you must be afraid, my son. that is how one becomes an..."

This quote by Jean-Paul Sartre reflects deeply on the theme of son. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Son, House, Citizens, 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 son and house. 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.

Views: 6
Topic
Son
House
Citizens
More From Jean-Paul Sartre
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.
Hurt
Pain
Agony
I Do Not Think Therefore I Am A Moustache
Thinking
Moustache
When My Relations With The Communist Party Gave Me The Necessary Perspective I Decided To Write My Autobiography. I Wanted To Show How A Man Can Pass From Literature Held Sacred To Action Which Nevertheless Remains That Of An Intellectual.
Party
Writing
Men
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.
Honest
Moments
That Moment
Everything Has Been Figured Out, Except How To Live.
Life
Spiritual
Witty
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
I Don't Know. Everything. Living. Smoking.
Smoking
Knows
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.
Men
Purpose
Action
It Is Certain That We Cannot Escape Anguish, For We Are Anguish.
Existentialism
Certain
Anguish
To Think New Thoughts You Have To Break The Bones In Your Head
Thinking
Bones
Break
When The Rich Wage War, It's The Poor Who Die.
Peace
War
Politics
Hell Is For Other People.
People
Hell
To Eat Is To Appropriate By Destruction.
Existentialism
Destruction
Appropriate
The Form [of Literature] Matters Little To Me, Classical Or Not.
Littles
Matter
Literature
A Human Being Who Wakened In The Morning With A Queesy Stomach, With Fifteen Hours To Kill Before Next Bedtime, Had Not Much Use For Freedom.
Morning
Fifteen
Next
The Characteristic Of Every Neurosis Is To Represent Itself As Natural.
Neurosis
Natural
Characteristics
I Am Alone In This White, Garden-rimmed Street. Alone And Free. But This Freedom Is Rather Like Death.
Garden
White
Streets
When The Rich [and Politically Powerful] Make War, It's The Poor [and Politically Weak] Who Die.
Powerful
War
Rich
I Had Spent My Time Counterfeiting Eternity.
Eternity
My Time
I Entered The Communist Party Because Its Cause Was Just And I Will Leave It When It Ceases To Be Just.
Party
Causes
Communist
Men Equally Honest, Equally Devoted To Their Fatherland, Are Momentarily Separated By Different Conceptions Of Their Duty.
Men
Differences
Different
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
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
Mean
Class
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.
Dust
Hands
Ideas
I Can Receive Nothing More From These Tragic Solitudes Than A Little Empty Purity.
Solitude
Littles
Purity
Life Has No Meaning The Moment You Lose The Illusion Of Being Eternal.
Life
Existentialism
Moments
On My Way To The Office In The Morning, There Are, In Front Of Me, Behind Me, Other Men Going To Their Jobs. I See Them; If I Dared, I Would Smile At Them. I Think To Myself That I Am A Socialist, That They Are The Purpose Of My Life, Of My Efforts And That They Do Not Know It Yet.
Morning
Jobs
Men
When I Can't See Myself In The Mirror, I Can't Even Feel Myself, And I Begin To Wonder If I Exist At All.
Mirrors
Wonder
Feels
To Keep Hope Alive One Must, In Spite Of All Mistakes, Horrors, And Crimes, Recognize The Obvious Superiority Of The Socialist Camp.
Mistake
Alive
Horror
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?
Real
Men
Play
Nothingness Lies Coiled In The Heart Of Being - Like A Worm.
Lying
Heart
Worms
The Existentialist Says At Once That Man Is Anguish.
Men
Existentialist
Anguish
Ha! To Forget. How Childish! I Feel You In My Bones. Your Silence Screams In My Ears. You May Nail Your Mouth Shut, You May Cut Out Your Tongue, Can You Keep Yourself From Existing? Will You Stop Your Thoughts.
Cutting
Silence
Nails
I Am Alone In The Midst Of These Happy, Reasonable Voices. All These Creatures Spend Their Time Explaining, Realizing Happily That They Agree With Each Other. In Heaven's Name, Why Is It So Important To Think The Same Things All Together.
Thinking
Names
Voice
A Man Who Is Free Is Like A Mangy Sheep In A Herd. He Will Contaminate My Entire Kingdom And Ruin My Work.
Men
Sheep
Kingdoms
Do You Think I Can Read [alain] Robbe-grillet In An Underdeveloped Country? He Does Not Feel Himself Maimed.
Country
Thinking
Doe
Heroism Is Not To Be Won At The Point Of A Pen.
Heroism
Pens
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.
Nausea
Want
Existentialism
Some Of These Days, Oh, You'll Miss Me Honey
Missing
Honey
Miss Me
Smooth And Smiling Faces Everywhere, But Ruin In Their Eyes.
Eye
Ruins
Faces
No Finite Point Has Meaning Without An Infinite Reference Point.
Infinite
Finite
It Is Enough That One Man Hate Another For Hate To Gain, Little By Little, All Mankind.
Hate
Men
Hatred
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.
Children
Heart
Men
I Hate Victims Who Respect Their Executioners.
Fake People
Hate
Judging
Better A Good Journalist Than A Poor Assassin.
Assassins
Poor
Good Journalism
Philosophy Which Does Not Help To Illuminate The Process Of The Liberation Of The Oppressed Should Be Rejected.
Philosophy
Doe
Helping
That’s What Existence Means: Draining One’s Own Self Dry Without The Sense Of Thirst.
Mean
Self
Dry
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.
Thinking
Crowds
Revolution
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.
Memories
Past
Squares
Why Do You Keep Maintaining Your Ideas Are Right If You Can't Prove Them?
Ideas
Maintaining
Prove
He Walked On In Silence, The Solitary Sound Of His Footsteps Echoing In His Head, As In A Deserted Street, At Dawn. His Solitude Was So Complete, Beneath A Lovely Sky As Mellow And Serene As A Good Conscience, Amid That Busy Throng, That He Was Amazed At His Own Existence; He Must Be Somebody Else's Nightmare, And Whoever It Was Would Certainly Awaken Soon.
Sky
Silence
Solitude
What I See Is Teeming Cohesion, Contained Dispersal... For Him, To Sculpt Is To Take The Fat Off Space.
Space
Sculpture
Cohesion
But For Me There Is Neither Monday Nor Sunday: There Are Days Which Pass In Disorder, And Then, Sudden Lightning Like This One. Nothing Has Changed And Yet Everything Is Different. I Can't Describe It, It's Like The Nausea And Yet It's Just The Opposite: At Last An Adventure Happens To Me And When I Question Myself I See That It Happens That I Am Myself And That I Am Here; I Am The One Who Splits In The Night, I Am As Happy As The Hero Of A Novel.
Monday
Hero
Adventure
Several Hours Or Several Years Make No Difference Once You Have Lost Eternity.
Years
Differences
Hours
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.
Book
Writing
Psychology
When She Is Alone In The Rooms I Hear Her Humming To Keep Herself From Thinking.
Thinking
Rooms
Chaos
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.
Thinking
Tranquility
Life Death
Man Can Will Nothing Unless He Has First Understood That He Must Count On No One But Himself.
Men
Firsts
Existentialism
Once Freedom Lights Its Beacon In Man's Heart, The Gods Are Powerless Against Him.
Heart
Men
Light
It Is No Longer Possible To Escape Men. Farewell To The Monsters, Farewell To The Saints. Farewell To Pride. All That Is Left Is Men.
Farewell
Pride
Men
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.
Love Is
Overcoming
Spite
This [service To Oppressed] Is The Writer's Task, And, If He Fulfills It As He Should, He Acquires No Merit From It.
Merit
Tasks
Should
Everything That Exists Is Born For No Reason, Carries On Living Through Weakness, And Dies By Accident
Philosophical
Weakness
Reason
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
I Am Not Virtuous. Our Sons Will Be If We Shed Enough Blood To Give Them The Right To Be.
Son
Blood
Giving
I Clung To Nothing, In A Way I Was Calm. But It Was A Horrible Calm—because Of My Body; My Body, I Saw With Its Eyes, I Heard With Its Ears, But It Was No Longer Me; It Sweated And Trembled By Itself And I Didn’t Recognize It Any More.
Eye
Ears
Body
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
But [your Crime] Will Be There, One Hundred Times Denied, Always There, Dragging Itself Behind You. Then You Will Finally Know That You Have Committed Your Life With One Throw Of The Die, Once And For All, And There Is Nothing You Can Do But Tug Our Crime Along Until Your Death. Such Is The Law, Just And Unjust, Of Repentance. Then We Will See What Will Become Of Your Young Pride.
Pride
Law
Punishment
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
Intellectuals Cannot Be Good Revolutionaries; They Are Just Good Enough To Be Assassins.
Assassins
Revolutionary
Enough
Death Is A Continuation Of My Life Without Me.
Death
Existentialism
Continuation
Atheism Is A Cruel Long Term Business, And I Have Gone Through It To The End.
Long
Atheism
Gone
He Is Always Becoming, And If It Were Not For The Contingency Of Death, He Would Never End.
Becoming
Ends
Contingency
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.
Dream
Men
Somewhere Else
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
Essence
Hell Is Other People At Breakfast.
Food
People
Breakfast
We Do Not Know What We Want And Yet We Are Responsible For What We Are - That Is The Fact.
Philosophy
Philosophical
Want
The Sun Is Not Ridiculous, Quite The Contrary. On Everything I Like, On The Rust Of The Construction Girders, On The Rotten Boards Of The Fence, A Miserly, Uncertain Light Falls, Like The Look You Give, After A Sleepless Night, On Decisions Made With Enthusiasm The Day Before, On Pages You Have Written In One Spurt Without Crossing Out A Word.
Fall
Night
Light
Take [stéphane] Mallarme. I Hold Him To Be The Greatest Of French Poets, And I Have Taken Some Time To Understand Him !
Taken
Poet
How Can I, Who Was Not Able To Retain My Own Past, Hope To Save That Of Another?
Past
Able
Alienation
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
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.
Purple
Oil
White
Better To Have Beasts That Let Themselves Be Killed Than Men Who Run Away.
Running
Men
Running Away
Don't You Feel The Same Way? When I Cannot See Myself, Even Though I Touch Myself, I Wonder If I Really Exist.
Way
Existentialism
Wonder
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
One Does Not Adopt A New Idea, One Slips Into It.
Ideas
Doe
New Ideas
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.
Thinking
Ideas
Challenges
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 Want Is' - And He Uttered The Final Words Through Clenched Teeth And With A Sort Of Shame - 'to Retain My Freedom.' I Should Myself Have Thought,' Said Jacques, 'that Freedom Consisted In Frankly Confronting Situations Into Which One Had Deliberately Entered, And Accepting All One's Responsibilities. But That, No Doubt, Is Not Your View.
Responsibility
Views
Doubt
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 Must Be Without Remorse Or Regrets As I Am Without Excuse; For From The Instant Of My Upsurge Into Being, I Carry The Weight Of The World By Myself Alone Without Help, Engaged In A World For Which I Bear The Whole Responsibility Without Being Able, Whatever I Do, To Tear Myself Away From This Responsibility For An Instant.
Regret
Responsibility
Tears
Existence Is An Imperfection.
Imperfection
Existence
It Was Odd, He Thought, That A Man Could Hate Himself As Though He Were Someone Else.
Hate
Men
Odd
To Be Responsible Is To Be The Uncontested Author Of An Event Or Thing.
Events
Responsible
Being Responsible
She Smiled And Said With An Ecstatic Air: "it Shines Like A Little Diamond", "what Does?" "this Moment. It Is Round, It Hangs In Empty Space Like A Little Diamond; I Am Eternal.
Air
Space
Shining
We Are Our Choices.
Choices
Our Choices
Thus It Amounts To The Same Thing Whether One Gets Drunk Alone Or Is A Leader Of Nations.
Inspirational
Drunk
Leader
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
Criminals Together. We're In Hell, My Little Friend, And There's Never Any Mistake There. People Are Not Damned For Nothing.
Mistake
People
Together
The Coward Makes Himself Cowardly, The Hero Makes Himself Heroic.
Hero
Coward
Heroic
Something Begins In Order To End: An Adventure Doesn't Let Itself Be Extended It Achieves Significance Only Through Its Death.
Adventure
Order
Achieve
I Am Not Recommending "popular" Literature Which Aims At The Lowest.
Literature
Aim
Popular Literature
I Suppose It Is Out Of Laziness That The World Is The Same Day After Day. Today It Seemed To Want To Change. And Then Anything, Anything Could Happen.
World
Laziness
Want
I Confused Things With Their Names: That Is Belief.
Confused
Names
Belief
Naturally, In The Course Of My Life I Have Made Lots Of Mistakes, Large And Small, For One Reason Or Another, But At The Heart Of It All, Every Time I Made A Mistake It Was Because I Was Not Radical Enough.
Mistake
Heart
Reason
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.
God
Hands
Covering
One Cannot Become A Saint When One Works Sixteen Hours A Day.
Philosophical
Saint
Sixteen
Night Is Falling: At Dusk, You Must Have Good Eyesight To Be Able To Tell The Good Lord From The Devil.
Fall
Night
Devil
The Real Nature Of The Present Revealed Itself: It Was What Exists, All That Was Not Present Did Not Exist.
Time
Real
Existential
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
Abjection Is A Methodological Conversion, Like Cartesian Doubt And Husserlian Epoche: It Establishes The World As A Closed System Which Consciousness Regards From Without, In The Manner Of Divine Understanding.
Understanding
Doubt
World
In Guinea I Could Read [franz] Kafka. I Re-discover In Him My Own Discomfort.
Guinea
Discomfort
My Own
We Will Not Go To Heaven,goetz, And Even If We Both Entered It, We Would Not Have Eyes To See Each Other, Nor Hands To Touch Each Other. Up There, God Gets All The Attention.... We Can Only Love On This Earth And Against God.
Life
Eye
Hands
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.
Shapes
Forget
My Thoughts
Once Liberty Has Exploded In The Soul Of A Man, The Gods Can Do Nothing Against That Man.
Men
Soul
Liberty
Emotion Is First Of All And In Principle An Accident
Principles
Firsts
Emotion
A Writer Must Refuse To Allow Himself To Be Transformed Into An Institution, Even If It Takes Place In The Most Honorable Form.
Honesty
Integrity
Character
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.
Struggle
Men
Essence
A Pale Reflection Of Myself Wavers In My Consciousness...and Suddenly The “i” Pales, Pales, And Fades Out.
Reflection
Consciousness
Pale
I Said To Myself, 'i Want To Die Decently'.
Want
Said
Dies
Life Is A Useless Passion.
Passion
Useless
Life Is
Our Responsibility Is Much Greater Than We Might Have Supposed, Because It Involves All Mankind.
Responsibility
Might
Existentialism
It Is Too Early To Love. We Will Buy The Right To Do So By Shedding Blood.
Life
Blood
Shedding Blood
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.
Kings
Men
Soul
It Is Only In Our Decisions That We Are Important.
Decision
Important
The More Absurd Life Is, The More Insupportable Death Is.
Life Is
Absurd
She Suffers As A Miser. She Must Be Miserly With Her Pleasures, As Well. I Wonder If Sometimes She Doesn't Wish She Were Free Of This Monotonous Sorrow, Of These Mutterings Which Start As Soon As She Stops Singing, If She Doesn't Wish To Suffer Once And For All, To Drown Herself In Despair. In Any Case, It Would Be Impossible For Her: She Is Bound.
Singing
Suffering
Sorrow
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
One Should Commit No Stupidity Twice, The Variety Of Choice Is, In The End, Large Enough.
Choices
Stupidity
Enough
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
It Is Always More Valuable To Report The Truth.
Peace
War
Valuable
To Read A Poem In January Is As Lovely As To Go For A Walk In June
Summer
June
Lovely
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.
Doe
Savages
Lucky
The [communist] Party Has One Objective: The Creation Of A Socialist Economy; And One Means: The Utilization Of The Class Struggle.
Party
Struggle
Mean
We Make Our Own Hell Out Of The People Around Us.
People
Hell
Only The Guy Who Isn't Rowing Has Time To Rock The Boat.
Rocks
Guy
Sailing
I Exist. It's Sweet, So Sweet, So Slow. And Light: You'd Think It Floated All By Itself. It Stirs. It Brushes By Me, Melts And Vanishes. Gently, Gently. There Is Bubbling Water In My Mouth. I Swallow. It Slides Down My Throat, It Caresses Me — And Now It Comes Up Again Into My Mouth. For Ever I Shall Have A Little Pool Of Whitish Water In My Mouth - Lying Low - Grazing My Tongue. And This Pool Is Still Me. And The Tongue. And The Throat Is Me.
Sweet
Lying
Thinking
Perhaps Its Inevitable, Perhaps One Has To Choose Between Being Nothing At All And Impersonating What One Is.
Inevitable
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
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
Introspection Is Always Retrospection
Human Nature
Introspection
A Writer Must Refuse To Allow Himself To Be Transformed Into An Institution.
Humility
Institutions
Refuse
Being Is. Being Is In-itself. Being Is What It Is.
Philosophical
Meaning Of Life
Life Begins On The Other Side Of Despair.
Inspirational
Life
Philosophical
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.
Men
Horizon
Looks
Man Is Nothing Else But What He Makes Of Himself.
Graduation
Freedom
Responsibility
One Could Only Damage Oneself Through The Harm One Did To Others. One Could Never Get Directly At Oneself.
Damage
Harm
Oneself
Sometimes The Truth Is Too Simple For Intellectuals.
Simple
Sometimes
Truth Is
Freedom Is Existence, And In It Existence Precedes Essence.
Essence
Existence
I Had Found My Religion: Nothing Seemed More Important To Me Than A Book. I Saw The Library As A Temple.
Book
Important
Library
So Long As One Believes In God, One Has The Right To Do The Good In Order To Be Moral.
Believe
Order
Long
Photographs Are Not Ideas. They Give Us Ideas.
Ideas
Giving
Photograph
What Is Boredom? It Is When There Is Simultaneously Too Much And Not Enough.
Boredom
Too Much
Enough
There Are Photographers Who Push For War Because They Make Stories. They Search For A Chinese Who Has A More Chinese Are Than The Others And They End Up Finding One. They Have Him Take A Typically Chinese Pose And Surround Him With Chinoiseries. What Have They Captured On Their Film? A Chinese? Definitely Not: The Idea Of The Chinese.
War
Ideas
Chinese
What's Done At Night Belongs To The Night. In The Daytime You Don't Talk About It.
Night
Done
Daytime
If You Want To Deserve Hell, You Need Only Stay In Bed. The World Is Iniquity; If You Accept It, You Are An Accomplice, If You Change It You Are An Executioner.
World
Want
Bed
A Man Is Involved In Life, Leaves His Impress On It, And Outside Of That There Is Nothing.
Men
Impress
Involved
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
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
Apes
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
Commitment
Silence
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.
Men
Rights
Optimism
When We Love Animals And Children Too Much, We Love Them At The Expense Of Men.
Love
Children
Animal
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.
Order
Criticism
Language
It Is Meaningless That We Are Born, It Is Meaningless That We Die.
Born
Dies
Meaningless
There Is No Book Of Mine That I Reject. That Does Not Mean That I Find Them Good.
Book
Mean
Doe
When Rich People Fight Wars With One Another, Poor People Are The Ones To Die.
Philosophy
War
Philosophical
If You Die, I Will Lie Down Beside You And I Will Stay There Until The End, Without Eating Or Drinking, You Will Rot In My Arms And I Will Love You As Carcass: For You Love Nothing If You Do Not Love Everything.
Life
Lying
Drinking
What I Regretted In La Nausee Was Not To Have Put Myself Completely Into The Thing. I Remained Outside My Hero's Disease, Protected By My Neurosis Which, Through Writing, Gave Me Happiness.
Hero
Writing
Neurosis
Generally Speaking There Is No Irreducible Taste Or Inclination. They All Represent A Certain Appropriative Choice Of Being. It Is Up To Existential Psychoanalysis To Compare And Classify Them. Ontology Abandons Us Here; It Has Merely Enabled Us To Determine The Ultimate Ends Of Human Reality, Its Fundamental Possibilities, And The Value Which Haunts It.
Reality
Choices
Fundamentals
I Am No Longer Sure Of Anything. If I Satiate My Desires, I Sin But I Deliver Myself From Them; If I Refuse To Satisfy Them, They Infect The Whole Soul.
Soul
Desire
Existentialism
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
The Painful Secret Of Gods And Kings Is That Men Are Free, Aegistheus. You Know It And They Do Not.
Kings
Men
Secret
The For-itself, In Fact, Is Nothing But The Pure Nihilation Of The In-itself; It Is Like A Hole Of Being At The Heart Of Being.
Heart
Facts
Holes
The Public, Too, Has To Make An Effort In Order To Understand The Writer Who, Though He Renounce Complacent Obscurity, Cannot Always Express His New-hidden Thoughts Lucidly And According To Accepted Models.
Order
Effort
Obscurity
Man Is What He Wills Himself To Be.
Men
No Exit
The Plight Of Modern Man Is That He Is Condemmed To Be Free.
Men
Plight
Modern
It’s The Well-behaved Children That Make The Most Formidable Revolutionaries. They Don’t Say A Word, They Don’t Hide Under The Table, They Eat Only One Piece Of Chocolate At A Time. But Later On, They Make Society Pay Dearly.
Children
Chocolate
Pieces
Ah! How I Hate The Crimes Of The New Generation: They Are Dry And Sterile As Darnel.
Hate
Generations
Dry
Nothingness Haunts Being.
Existentialism
Nothingness
As Long As The Writer Cannot Write For The Two Billion Men Who Are Hungry, He Will Be Oppressed By A Feeling Of Malaise.
Writing
Men
Two
Absurd, Irreducible; Nothing--not Even A Profound And Secret Delirium Of Nature--could Explain [a Tree Root].
Nature
Roots
Profound
You See, The Contemporary Writer Must Write Through His Intimations Of Unease, While Trying To Elucidate Them.
Writing
Trying
Contemporary
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.
Years
Mind
Literature
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.
Children
Choices
Determined
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 Believe, I Desire, That Social And Economic Ills May Be Remedied.
Believe
Desire
May
The Viable Jewels Of Life Remain Untouched When Man Forgets His Vocation Of Searching For The Truth Of His Existence.
Men
Jewels
Forget
What Do I Care About Jupiter? Justice Is A Human Issue, And I Do Not Need A God To Teach It To Me.
Philosophical
Umpires
Issues
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
I Have Such A Desire To Sleep And Am So Much Behind My Sleep. A Good Night, One Good Night And All This Nonsense Will Be Swept Away.
Good Night
Sleep
Desire
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
We Must Act Out Passion Before We Can Feel It.
Inspirational
Philosophical
Passion
I Do Not Understand! I Understand Nothing! I Cannot Understand Nor Do I Want To Understand! I Want To Believe! To Believe!
Believe
Want
Belief
An Individual Chooses And Makes Himself.
Individual
A Good Hanging Now And Then -- That Entertains Folk In The Provinces And Robs Death Of Its Glamour.
Now And Then
Glamour
Folks
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
All That I Know About My Life, It Seems, I Have Learned In Books.
Book
Philosophical
I Have Learned
I Admire [samuel] Beckett, But I Am Totally Against Him. He Seeks No Improvement.
Improvement
Admire
Beckett
I Receive Letters From Workers, From Secretaries. . . . They Are The Most Interesting Ones.
Interesting
Letters
Workers
Existence Is Prior To Essence.
Essence
Existence
Trending Author
Roger Daltrey
Linda Sue Park
Afrika Bambaataa
Buck Owens
Albert Einstein
Brendan Fehr
Category
Information