The Wisdom Letter #259

5 quotes from Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)

✹ For today’s Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from the French philosopher and playwright, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), each paired with a philosophical question meant to provoke deep reflection:

Quote № 01:

“The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free. They are free, Aegisthus. You know it, but they do not.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, “The Flies”

~ Follow-up Question:

If human beings are fundamentally free, how does this freedom impose an existential responsibility on each individual for the conditions of their lives, and what psychological or cultural mechanisms might be employed to evade or deny this responsibility?

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Quote № 02:

“In a world, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, “Characterizations of Existentialism”

~ Follow-up Question:

How does the notion that individuals must forge their own essence through engagement with the world challenge traditional ideas of innate identity, and in what ways does this active process of self-definition alter the meaning of authenticity in human existence?

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Quote № 03:

“I am responsible for everything ... except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible. I am abandoned in the world ... in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, “Being and Nothingness”

~ Follow-up Question:

In what ways does the experience of existential abandonment, described as sudden solitude without external aid, reshape our conception of freedom not as a liberating force but as a heavy, inescapable burden that structures the very fabric of human existence?

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Quote № 04:

“What matters is not what is being done of us, but what we do ourselves with what has been done of us.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, “Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr”

~ Follow-up Question:

How does the emphasis on what individuals make of their circumstances, rather than the circumstances themselves, challenge deterministic views of human identity, and what philosophical insights does this offer into the nature of personal agency and moral authorship?

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Quote № 05:

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

~ Follow-up Question:

In what ways does the framing of life as a daily cycle of receiving and losing evoke a heightened awareness of mortality, and how might this shape the existential urgency with which individuals approach meaning, purpose, and daily action?

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

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