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The Age of Reason QUOTES

The Age of Reason QUOTES

1 " He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

2 " 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. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

3 " Well, you're free without wanting to be,' he explained, 'it just happens so, that's all. But Mathieu's freedom is based on reason.'
'I still don't understand,' said Lola, shaking her head.
'Well, he doesn't care a curse about his apartment: he lives there just as he would live anywhere else, and I've got the feeling that he doesn't care much about his girl. He stays with her because he must sleep with someone. His freedom isn't visible, it's inside him. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

4 " I go, I go away, I walk, I wander, and everywhere I go I bear my shell with me, I remain at home in my room, among my books, I do not approach an inch nearer to Marrakech or Timbuktu. Even if I took a train, a boat, or a motor-bus, if I went to Morocco for my holiday, if I suddenly arrived at Marrakech, I should be always in my room, at home. And if I walked in the squares and in the sooks, if I gripped an Arab's shoulder, to feel Marrakech in his person - well, that Arab would be at Marrakech, not I : I should still be seated in my room, placid and meditative as is my chosen life, two thousand miles away from the Moroccan and his burnoose. In my room. Forever. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

5 " I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

6 " With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

7 " The individual's duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

8 " Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

9 " It's just what people do when they're getting old, when they're sick of themselves and their life; they think of money and take care of themselves. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

10 " But no: he was empty, he was confronted by a vast anger, a desperate anger, he saw it and could almost have touched it. But it was inert - if it were to live and find expression and suffer, he must lend it his own body. It was other people's anger. "Swine!" He clenched his fists, he strode along, but nothing came, the anger remained external to himself. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

11 " Perhaps it’s inevitable; perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all, or impersonating what one is. That would be terrible,’ he said to himself: ‘it would mean that we were duped by nature. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

12 " He yawned; he had finished the day, and he had also finished with his youth. Various tried and proved rules of conduct had already discreetly offered him their services: disillusioned epicureanism, smiling tolerance, resignation, flat seriousness, stoicism--all the aids whereby a man may savor, minute by minute, like a connoisseur, the failure of a life... 'I have attained the age of reason. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

13 " Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited... For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

14 " But you looked much more like a fellow who had just realised that he has been living on ideas that don’t pay. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

15 " If I didn't try to assume responsibility for my own existence, it would seem utterly absurd to go on existing. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

16 " Her smiles, her mimicries, all the words she uttered were addressed to herself through him. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

17 " When a man gets drunk he gets sentimental. That's what I wanted to avoid. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

18 " What a torment it is not to be rich! It gets one into such abject situations. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

19 " Love was not something to be felt, not a particular emotion, nor yet a particular shade of feeling, it was much more like a lowering curse on the horizon, a precursor of disaster. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason

20 " She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond",
"What does?"
"This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , The Age of Reason