Jean-Paul Sartre — Quote from Being and Nothingness

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

Being and Nothingness (1943)

Concepts: freedom, agency, absurd

Resonant Quotes

“Modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simult...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom Sartre's condemnation to freedom and Fromm's negative freedom describe the same terrifying discovery: freedom without...
“Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one w...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Both existentialists describe the burden of conscious acceptance—Sartre's condemned freedom and Camus's absurd fate b...
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort o...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science Sartre's concept of radical freedom as condemnation directly follows from Nietzsche's death of God—without divine aut...
“To will oneself free is also to will others free.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity De Beauvoir extends Sartre's radical freedom by revealing its inherently intersubjective dimension—one cannot authent...
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety Kierkegaard's anxiety and Sartre's condemnation both capture the vertiginous experience of confronting the groundless...
“Do it or do not do it — you will regret both.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Both quotes illuminate the existential burden of freedom where radical responsibility and the inevitability of regret...
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free tha...” — Albert Camus, The Rebel Sartre's condemnation to freedom becomes, in Camus's vision, a liberation—where Sartre sees the burden of total respo...
“Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.” — Franz Kafka, The Trial Both quotes illuminate the paradoxical necessity of reaching irreversible thresholds where the weight of absolute res...