Quotes from The Wall

Jean-Paul Sartre ·  183 pages

Rating: (17K votes)


“I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“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.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“I had spent my time
counterfeiting eternity.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity, I had understood nothing.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall



“No, my child, these things are impossible. It would have been better if she had recognize the truth courageously. She would have suffered once, then time would have erased with its sponge. There is nothing like looking things in the face, believe me.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“je prenais tout au sérieux, comme si j'avais été immortel.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“Lucien thought with bitter pleasure that his parents found him looking fine. “I don’t exist.” He closed his eyes and let himself drift: existence is an illusion because I know I don t exist, all I have to do is plug my ears and not think about anything and I’ll become nothingness.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“İnsan, insanlara var olmadıklarını inandırmak için bir felsefe incelemesine güvenemezdi. Bunun bir eylem olması gerekiyordu, gerçekten öylesine umutsuz bir eylem ki görüntüleri silsin götürsündü ve dünyanın hiçliğini gün ışığına göstersindi.
Bir patlama, kan içinde genç bir beden halının üstünde, bir kağıda yazılmış sözcükler: Kendimi öldürüyorum, çünkü var değilim. Ve siz de insan kardeşlerim, hiçsiniz!”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“Varlığı bir rezaletti ve daha sonra üstüne alacağı sorumluluklar bu rezaleti doğrulamaya yetecekti.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall



“Į žmones reikia žiūrėti iš aukštai. Būdavo, užgesinu šviesą ir atsistoju prie lango: jie nė neįtaria, kad juos galima stebėti ir iš viršaus. Jie rūpinasi savo priekiu, kartais užpakaliu, bet visi jų triukai skirti metro setyniasdešimties centimetrų ūgio žiūrovui. O ar kas nors kada pagalvojo, kaip atrodo katiliuko formos kepurė žvelgiant iš septinto aukšto? <...> Vieną vakarą man toptelėjo mintis pašaudyti į žmones.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“Antes de alguém viver, a vida, em si mesma, não é nada; é quem é a vive que deve dar-lhe um sentido; e o valor nada mais que constatar-se, assim, que é possível criar uma comunidade humana.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“Before beginning this treatise, he wanted the advice of The Baboon, his philosophy prof. “Excuse me, sir,” he said at the end of a class, “could anyone claim that we don’t exist?” The Baboon said no. “Goghito,” he said, “ergo zum. You exist because you doubt your existence.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“I consented to die in his place; his life had no more value than mine; no life had value. They were going to slap a man up against a wall and shoot at him till he died, whether it was I or Gris or somebody else made no difference. I knew he was more useful than I to the cause of Spain but I thought to hell with Spain and anarchy; nothing was important.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall


“Biz gümbürtüye gitmiş insanlarız," diyordu gururla, "biz hayatı ıskalayanlardanız. Hiçbir işe yaramayacağız.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall



About the author

Jean-Paul Sartre
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date June 21, 1905
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Popular quotes

“Татьяна (русская душою,
Сама не зная, почему)
С ее холодною красою
Любила русскую зиму,
На солнце иней в день морозный,
И сани, и зарею поздной
Сиянье розовых снегов,
И мглу крещенских вечеров.”
― Alexander Pushkin, quote from Evžen Oněgin


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― Epictetus, quote from Discourses and Selected Writings


“grief is long and messy and horrible—but it’s not an illness. And you cope how you cope. There’s no ‘well’ about it.”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Surprise Me


“I’m good, but I’m not that good. Unless we steal a baby—” Colin”
― Allison Tebo, quote from The Reluctant Godfather


“Having escaped the Dark Ages in which animals were mere stimulus-response machines, we are free to contemplate their mental lives. It is a great leap forward, the one that Griffin fought for. But now that animal cognition is an increasingly popular topic, we are still facing the mindset that animal cognition can be only a poor substitute of what we humans have. It can’t be truly deep and amazing. Toward the end of a long career, many a scholar cannot resist shining a light on human talents by listing all the things we are capable of and animals not. From the human perspective, these conjectures may make a satisfactory read, but for anyone interested, as I am, in the full spectrum of cognitions on our planet, they come across as a colossal waste of time. What a bizarre animal we are that the only question we can ask in relation to our place in nature is “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?”
― Frans de Waal, quote from Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?


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