The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being.

The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free, Aegistheus. You know it and they do not.

Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

Man's existence precedes his essence

If I did not publish this autobiography [Les Mots] sooner and in its most radical form, it is because I considered it exaggerated.

I construct my memories with my present. I am lost, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.