Jean-Paul Sartre Quotes on Death
Jean-Paul Sartre was a 20th-century French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist, the leading public exponent of existentialism in the post-war period. This page collects quotes attributed to Jean-Paul Sartre on the topic of death, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“He was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate; to marry, to give up the game, to drag this death weight about with him for years to come. He could do what he liked, no one had the right to advise him, there would be for him no Good or Evil unless he thought them into being.”
L'âge de raison ( The Age of Reason ) (1945) -
“I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living.”
Dirty Hands(1948) | Act 5, sc. 3 -
“It is the same thing: killing, dying, it is the same thing: one is just as alone in each. He is lucky, he will only die once. As for me, for ten days I have been killing him at every minute.”
Dirty Hands(1948) | Hugo to Jessica, on his plans to kill Hoederer, Act 5, sc. 2 -
“If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.”
The Devil and the Good Lord(1951) | Act 1 -
“One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.”
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr(1952) | Book 2, "The Melodious Child Dead in Me" -
“But since he has decided to have the impossibility of living, every misfortune is an opportunity which lays this importance of living before his eyes and obliges him to decide, once again, to die.”
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr(1952) | p. 158 -
“I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.”
No Exit(1944)