Jean-Paul Sartre — Quote from Nausea
“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”
Nausea (1938)
Concepts: absurd, meaning, alienation
Resonant Quotes
- “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Ju...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Sartre's description of existence as fundamentally contingent and meaningless provides the precise existential backdr...
- “Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little conn...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Both reveal how philosophical awakening unveils existence's fundamental contingency, with Camus's 'worm' metaphor cap...
- “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.” — Albert Camus, The Stranger Both existentialists embrace the fundamental absurdity and contingency of existence, with Camus finding peace in the ...
- “I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I...” — Albert Camus, The Stranger Both quotes capture the existentialist revelation of life's fundamental contingency—Camus's indifferent 'And so?' mir...
- “People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as ano...” — Albert Camus, The Stranger Both quotes capture existentialist resignation to life's fundamental meaninglessness—Sartre's cosmic accident produci...
- “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Both quotes confront the philosophical crisis of meaninglessness—Sartre describing absurd contingency, Dostoevsky war...
- “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your lonelies...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Sartre's meaningless existence becomes the ultimate test for Nietzsche's eternal recurrence—could one affirm life eve...
- “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort o...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Sartre's contingency of existence and Nietzsche's death of God arrive at the same abyss: a universe without inherent ...