“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“But no: he was empty, he was confronted by a vast anger, a desperate anger, he saw it and could almost have touched it. But it was inert - if it were to live and find expression and suffer, he must lend it his own body. It was other people's anger. "Swine!" He clenched his fists, he strode along, but nothing came, the anger remained external to himself.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Perhaps it’s inevitable; perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all, or impersonating what one is. That would be terrible,’ he said to himself: ‘it would mean that we were duped by nature.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited... For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“He yawned; he had finished the day, and he had also finished with his youth. Various tried and proved rules of conduct had already discreetly offered him their services: disillusioned epicureanism, smiling tolerance, resignation, flat seriousness, stoicism--all the aids whereby a man may savor, minute by minute, like a connoisseur, the failure of a life... 'I have attained the age of reason.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“But you looked much more like a fellow who had just realised that he has been living on ideas that don’t pay.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Her smiles, her mimicries, all the words she uttered were addressed to herself through him.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Well, you're free without wanting to be,' he explained, 'it just happens so, that's all. But Mathieu's freedom is based on reason.'
'I still don't understand,' said Lola, shaking her head.
'Well, he doesn't care a curse about his apartment: he lives there just as he would live anywhere else, and I've got the feeling that he doesn't care much about his girl. He stays with her because he must sleep with someone. His freedom isn't visible, it's inside him.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“If... if I didn't try to get my life moving on my own account, I should think it just absurd to go on living.'
A look of smiling obstinacy had come into Marcelle's face.
'Yes, yes - it's your vice.'
'It's not a vice. It's how I'm made.'
'Why aren't other people made like that, if it isn't a vice?'
'They are, only they don't know it.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“I go, I go away, I walk, I wander, and everywhere I go I bear my shell with me, I remain at home in my room, among my books, I do not approach an inch nearer to Marrakech or Timbuktu. Even if I took a train, a boat, or a motor-bus, if I went to Morocco for my holiday, if I suddenly arrived at Marrakech, I should be always in my room, at home. And if I walked in the squares and in the sooks, if I gripped an Arab's shoulder, to feel Marrakech in his person - well, that Arab would be at Marrakech, not I : I should still be seated in my room, placid and meditative as is my chosen life, two thousand miles away from the Moroccan and his burnoose. In my room. Forever.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“What a torment it is not to be rich! It gets one into such abject situations.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Love was not something to be felt, not a particular emotion, nor yet a particular shade of feeling, it was much more like a lowering curse on the horizon, a precursor of disaster.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“I'm not obstinate, I'm highly strung: I don't know how to let myself go. I must always think of what is happening to me - it's a form of self-protection.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“When a man gets drunk he gets sentimental. That's what I wanted to avoid.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Qarjet e të rriturve ishin si një katastrofë mistike, diçka si lotët që derdh Zoti për ligësinë e njerëzve.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“J'aurai cru, moi, dit Jacques, que la liberté consistait à regarder en face les situations où l'on s'est mis de plein gré et à accepter toutes ses responsabilités. Mais çe n'est sans doute pas ton avis : tu condamnes la société capitaliste , et pourtant tu es fonctionnaire dans cette société, tu affiches une sympathie de principe pour les communistes : mais tu te gardes bien de t'engager, tu n 'as jamais voté. Tu méprises la classe bourgeoise et pourtant tu es bourgeois, fils et frère de bourgeois et tu vis comme un bourgeois.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“If I didn't try to assume responsibility for my own existence, it would seem utterly absurd to go on existing.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
“Espera tanto tempo. Os últimos anos tinham sido uma vigília.
Esperara através de mil e uma preocupações quotidianas.
Naturalmente durante esse tempo andara atrás de mulheres, viajara e ganhara a vida. Mas através de tudo isso a sua única preocupação fora manter-se disponível. Para uma acção. Um acto.
Um acto livre e reflectido que acarretaria o destino da sua vida e seria o início de uma nova existência. Nunca pudera prender-se definitivamente a um amor, a um prazer, nunca fora realmennte infeliz; sempre lhe parecera estar algures, não ter ainda nascido completamente.
Esperava. E durante esse tempo, devagar, sub-repticiamente os anos tinham chegado, e tinham-no envolvido.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Age of Reason
Jean-Paul Sartre
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date June 21, 1905
See more on GoodReads
“Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
― Max Ehrmann, quote from Desiderata: Words For Life
“Trains in these parts went from East to West, and from West to East . . .
On either side of the railway lines lay the great wide spaces of the desert - Sary-Ozeki, the Middle lands of the yellow steppes.
In these parts any distance was measured in relation to the railway, as if from the Greenwich meridian . . .
And the trains went from East to West, and from West to East . . .”
― Chingiz Aitmatov, quote from The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years
“That dark, dingy, cobwebbed basement had taken all my life from me. That place was where I gave myself up, destroyed my own will for him, and now it was gone. My will was dead, so I might as well be dead.”
― Margaux Fragoso, quote from Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir
“Blood—” I rasped. “The earth cannot hold all the blood that’s shed on it. And so the stream flows below. We have passed through it now; soon it will be gone from you.”
― Ellen Kushner, quote from Thomas the Rhymer
“Speech itself, inevitable and unrelenting is the wind. It can dance like a zephyr. It can roar or shriek or wail. But it cant be stopped. Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation; its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage.
Also present was everything we admire: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power. Same as it ever was.”
― Brooke Gladstone, quote from The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media
Manhattan Transfer
The End of Alice
A Natural History of...
Suicide Notes from B...
See How They Run
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
