Existentialism

Existentialism holds that existence precedes essence: individuals create their own meaning in an indifferent universe. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus made it the defining philosophical movement of the 20th century.

17 thinkers1,611 quotesTop field: Philosophy

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion"

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Simone de Beauvoir· b. 1908View quote →

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Jean-Paul Sartre

🇫🇷Jean-Paul Sartre

"...in order to change poverty into wealth, one must start by displaying it."

Simone de Beauvoir

🇫🇷Simone de Beauvoir

"One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion"

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."

🇩🇪Hermann Hesse

"Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure."

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

"The human body is essentially something other than an animal organism."

Emmanuel Levinas

🇫🇷Emmanuel Levinas

"To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods."

Emil Cioran

"What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots."

🇺🇸Colin Wilson

"Most men have nothing in their heads but their physical needs; put them on a desert island with nothing to occupy their minds and they would go insane. They lack real motive. The curse of civilization is boredom."

Herbert Read

🇬🇧Herbert Read

"These are the sensations and feelings that are gradually blunted by education, staled by custom, rejected in favor of social conformity."

🇯🇵Kenzaburō Ōe

"A dangerous atmosphere of nationalism is coming in our society. So now I want to criticize this tendency, and I want to do everything to prevent the development of fascism in Japanese society."

Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Berdyaev

"I do not think discursively. It is not so much that I arrive at truth as that I take my start from it."

Alberto Moravia

🇮🇹Alberto Moravia

"And we all know love is a glass which makes even a monster appear fascinating."

Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)

🇺🇸Walter Kaufmann (philosopher)

"The most obvious failure of organized religions is surely that almost all of them have made a mockery of what their founders taught."

🇪🇸Joan Fuster

"There are Catalanists because there are Spanishers."

🇬🇧Mary Warnock

"Oxford is, and always has been, full of cliques, full of factions, and full of a particular non-social snobbiness."

🇦🇹Martin Buber

"The Thou encounters me by grace — it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed."

🇺🇸Marjorie Grene

Notable Quotes

"Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise." (p. 248)"

— Simone de Beauvoir, b. 1908View →

"Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay."

— Simone de Beauvoir, b. 1908View →

"In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation."

— Simone de Beauvoir, b. 1908View →

"...in order to change poverty into wealth, one must start by displaying it."

— Jean-Paul Sartre, b. 1905View →

"Man is always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is not. He makes himself known to himself from the other side of the world and he looks from the horizon toward himself to recover his inner being."

— Jean-Paul Sartre, b. 1905View →

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