I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means that first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. ... Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence.Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.

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.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.