Jean-Paul Sartre — Quote from Existentialism Is a Humanism
“Existence precedes essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world, and defines himself afterward.”
Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946)
Concepts: freedom, authenticity, meaning
Resonant Quotes
- “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free tha...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel Sartre's radical freedom to self-define and Camus's freedom as rebellion are twin pillars of existentialism — both in...
- “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex Beauvoir's 'one becomes a woman' is the direct application of Sartre's 'existence precedes essence' — both insist ide...
- “If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?” — Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be? Fromm's crisis of possessive identity dissolves in Sartre's radical freedom—if existence precedes essence, we are nev...
- “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the ver...” — Erich Fromm, Man for Himself Both articulate how human authenticity emerges precisely through confronting the absence of predetermined essence or ...
- “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort o...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Nietzsche's death of God creates the philosophical space that Sartre's existentialism occupies—without divine essence...
- “There are no facts, only interpretations.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks Nietzsche's interpretive perspectivism provides the epistemological foundation for Sartre's existential claim that hu...
- “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” — Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks Fanon's embodied questioning extends Sartre's abstract formulation into the concrete reality of racialized existence,...
- “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night Vonnegut's warning about performative identity directly engages Sartre's thesis that self-definition follows existenc...