A quotation from Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

1905 CE – 1980 CE

Existence precedes essence. He said it, lived it, and refused the Nobel Prize to prove it.

Sartre's key move was reversing the traditional order: for objects, essence comes first, since a hammer is designed to be a hammer before it exists. For humans there is no blueprint. You exist first, then make yourself what you are. This terrifying freedom, being condemned to be free as he put it, is the foundation of everything else: bad faith (pretending you had no choice), authenticity (owning that you did), and the gaze of the other (the moment someone else's look turns you into a thing). He wrote philosophy, plays, novels, and political journalism in equal torrents. He refused the Nobel Prize in 1964 because he believed it would compromise his independence. He had previously refused the Legion of Honor. He lived in a small Paris apartment, gave most of his money away, and chain-smoked and argued until he could not see. He was wrong about Stalin for too long. He was right about freedom for long enough.