Sepideh’s Reviews > How to Read Sartre > Status Update

"Sartre succeeded in developing a philosophy that not only gave an account of the basis and operation of oppression, but also showed how adherence to an exaggerated individualismcontributes to the persistence of that oppression, by inhibiting awareness of the solidarity that might allow the oppressed to join together to fight oppression."

"For example, to choose to get married is not to say everyone should be married, but it is to support the institution of marriage. Every agent by their actions promotes a type of existence."

'Sartre initially tells the reader that he is employing the word "responsibility" in the sense that one is responsible for something only if one is its "incontestable author". However, within two pages he has drawn an extraordinary conclusion: "I am responsible for everything, in fact, except my very responsibility.".'

'At its simplest, Sartre is saying that my freedom to choose my goals or projects entails that I have also chosen the obstacles I encounter along the way. It's by deciding to climb this mountain that I have turned the weakness of my body & the steepness of the cliffs into obstacles, which they were not so, long as I was content simply to gaze at the mountain from the comfort of my chair.'

"For from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without anything or any person being able to lighten it."
From the book, quoted from 'Being and nothingness'

"In this sense it is necessary that we make ourselves what we are. But what are we then if we have the constant obligation to make ourselves what we are, if our mode of being is having the obligation to be what we are?"

"Because nothing is more important than others for our understanding of ourselves, then if our relations with others are warped or depraved, then hell is others."

"All those who depend on others for validation are hostage to the judgements that those others pass on them."

"It is by freely projecting the possibilities of one's existence that one determines how one sees things, what function they have, and their place in the world. That is why the breakdown of one's project, not only deprives a person of meaning but also leads things to lose their significance."

"In contrast with the contingency of existence that for Roquentin characterizes things and even himself, the music displays a certain necessity and in so doing cures his nausea."