1001Philosophers

Friedrich Nietzsche vs Jean-Paul Sartre on Life

Nietzsche and Sartre share the conviction that existence is fundamentally without given meaning and that any meaning must be created by the existing individual. They diverge on who can do this. Nietzsche reserves the affirmation of life for the higher type capable of creating new values; Sartre democratizes the move and holds that every human being is condemned to freedom and to the project of self-creation.

About this topic

The question of what makes a life worth living runs through almost every philosophical tradition. Ancient philosophers identified the good life with virtue, contemplation, or the absence of disturbance; medieval thinkers tied it to the love of God and the order of creation; modern philosophers have located meaning in autonomy, projects, relationships, or self-creation. The quotes collected here range across all these strands, from Stoic counsels of resilience to existentialist treatments of meaning under conditions of uncertainty.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full Friedrich Nietzsche vs Jean-Paul Sartre comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Life quotes hub.

Representative quotes on life

Friedrich Nietzsche on life

  • “I now myself live, in every detail, striving for wisdom, while I formerly merely worshipped and idolized the wise.”

    Letter to Mathilde Mayer, July 16, 1878, cited in Karl Jaspers , Nietzsche (Baltimore: 1997), p. 46

  • Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:

    “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

  • Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:

    “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

  • Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

  • Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:

    “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

All 7 Friedrich Nietzsche quotes on life →

Jean-Paul Sartre on life

  • “Hell is other people.”

    Alors, c'est ça l'enfer. Je n'aurais jamais cru... vous vous rappelez: le soufre, le bûcher, le gril... ah! Quelle plaisanterie. Pas besoin de gril, l'enfer, c'est les autres.

  • “Existence precedes essence.”

    L'existence précède et commande l'essence.

  • “Man is condemned to be free.”

    Existentialism Is a Humanism, 1946

  • “Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”

    Nausea, 1938

  • “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

    p. 41

All 7 Jean-Paul Sartre quotes on life →

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