Posts tagged Jean-Paul Sartre

Reason, Weakness and Chance

Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance. I leaned back and I closed my eyes. But pictures, promptly informed, sprang forward and filled my closed eyes with existences: existence is a repletion which man can never abandon.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

In My Place

I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

Such Utter Loneliness

‘Happy?’ His gaze is disconcerting, he has raised his eyebrows and is staring at me. ‘You are going to be able to judge, Monsieur. Before taking that decision, I felt such utter loneliness that I thought of committing suicide. What held me back was the idea that nobody, absolutely nobody would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life.’

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

They Know It

I stop listening to them: they annoy me. They are going to sleep together. They know it. Each of them knows that the other knows it. But as they are young, chaste, and decent, as each wants to keep his self-respect and that of the other, and as love is a great poetic thing which mustn’t be shocked, they go several times a week to dances and restaurants, to present the spectacle of their ritualistic, mechanical dances . . .

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

The Nothingness to Which I Aspire

My thought is me: that is why I can’t stop. I exist by what I think .. and I can’t prevent myself from thinking. At this very moment – this is terrible – if I exist, it is because I hate existing. It is I, it is I who pull myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: hatred and disgust for existence are just so many ways of making me exist, of thrusting me into existence. Thoughts are born behind me like a feeling of giddiness, I can feel them being born behind my head .. If I give way, they’ll come here in front, between my eyes – and I go on giving way, the thought grows and grows and here it is, huge, filling me completely and renewing my existence.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

Duller Than Flesh

I jump to my feet: if only I could stop thinking, that would be something of an improvement. Thoughts are the dullest thing on earth. Even duller than flesh. They stretch out endlessly and they leave a funny taste in the mouth.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

There is nothing

For me the past was only a pensioning off: it was another way of existing, a state of holiday and inactivity; each event, when it had played its part, dutifully packed itself away in a box and became an honorary event: we find it so difficult to imagine nothingness. Now I knew. Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them .. there is nothing.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

It is a Trap

On the wall there is a white hole, the mirror. It is a trap. I know that I am going to let myself be caught in it. I have. The grey thing has just appeared in the mirror. I go over and look at it, I can no longer move away.

It is the reflection of my face. Often, during these wasted days, I sit here contemplating it. I can understand nothing about this face. Other people’s faces have some significance. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly, because I have been told so. But that doesn’t strike me. At heart, I am indeed shocked that qualities of this sort can be applied to it, as if you called a piece of earth or a lump of rock beautiful or ugly

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

These Happy, Reasonable Voices

I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these characters spend their time explaining themselves, and happily recognizing that they hold the same opinions. Good God, how important they consider it to think the same things all together. It’s enough to see their expressions when one of those fishy-eyed men who look as if they are turned in upon themselves passes among them.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

A Terrible Witness

When you live alone, you forget what it is to tell a story: plausibility disappears at the same time as friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can’t make head or tail: you’d make a terrible witness.

Nausea (Jean-Paul Sartre)

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