Jean-Paul Sartre

"Every man is guilty of all the evil he does not personally prevent."

"The more you own, the more it owns you."

"Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness."

"Sadness is a form of protest."

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."

"Imagination is not an empirical faculty; it does not work on the given."

"The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power."

"Every act of rebellion reasserts human freedom."

"We are imprisoned in choices we did not make."

"The only thing that matters is how we respond to what fate brings."

"Art is the bridge between what is and what could be."

"Violence is man re-creating himself."

"To understand a man, you must know what he wants."

"Generosity is the courage to help without knowing the outcome."

"We live as though we are spectators of our own lives."

"In choosing myself, I choose man."

"The goal of poetry is truth; the goal of prose is clarity."

"Consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question insofar as this being implies a being other than itself."

"Man is defined not by his nature but by his history."

"Authentic existence comes through accepting total responsibility."

"We want to be everything; that is why we often become nothing."

"Social relationships demand the sacrifice of our authenticity."

"Each person's death diminishes the human community."

"The fundamental project of being human is doomed to failure."

"Not to choose is still to choose."

"Radical freedom is terrifying because it removes all excuses."

"Literature is the essence of human liberty."

"We forge our own meaning in an absurd universe."

"Political engagement is not optional; it is necessary."

"The intellectual must refuse to serve power."