If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the conflict between the acknowledgment of atheism and the intrinsic human longing for a higher power.
In this quote, Sartre articulates the struggle between rational disbelief in God and an emotional yearning for divine existence. It reflects a profound existential crisis where the intellectual rejection of God clashes with deep-seated feelings that crave meaning, purpose, and connection beyond human existence.
Themes
ExistenceGodLongingBeliefAtheism
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of belief and existence.
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.
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If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
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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.
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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.
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Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
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What a host of little incidents, all deep-buried in the past -- problems that had once been urgent, arguments that had once been keen, anecdotes that were funny only because one remembered the fun. Did any emotion really matter when the last trace of it had vanished from human memory; and if that were so, what a crowd of emotions clung to him as to their last home before annihilation? He must be kind to them, must treasure them in his mind before their long sleep.
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we follow One who stood and wept at the grave of Lazarus-not surely, because He was grieved that Mary and Martha wept, and sorrowed for their lack of faith (though some thus interpret) but because death, the punishment of sin, is even more horrible in his eyes than in ours.
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