If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The speaker rejects the authority of a higher power over human existence and asserts their own individuality.
In this quote, Jean-Paul Sartre emphasizes the importance of human autonomy and defiance against external forces, including divine authority. He expresses a strong conviction that no god or cosmic entity can dictate the values and truths inherent to human experience, thereby asserting the supremacy of personal belief and identity over imposed beliefs.
Themes
FreedomAutonomyExistenceDefianceIndividuality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a philosophical debate about the nature of existence and authority.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes →All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
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God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.
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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).
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And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices.
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Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.
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