Meaning of Life Perspectives in France

"Science may be able to explain the world, but it will never be able to give it meaning "

"Only in committing ourselves to a decision do we learn what it means to be free."

"Commitment is an act, not a word."

"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones."

"One only needs to grow old to become a master of delay."

"To be able to choose, we must first be able to recognize alternatives."

"The only real progress is moral progress."

"It is only in our decisions that we are free."

"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

"The poor man who has a lived a life filled with honest toil has earned it; the rich man who has lived a life of dishonest gain has not."

"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism."

"To choose not to choose is still to choose."

"Three o'clock in the afternoon is always too late or too early for anything you want to do."

"We used to wonder where love was, now we know it's here, and it's in our hearts, it's everywhere."

"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."

"Words are like loaded pistols."

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."

"A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost."

"What we call 'self-consciousness' is always consciousness of an object."

"There is no love of life without despair of life."

"Hell is other people."

"Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he has to rely on himself alone."

"We are always our choices. This is why we can be guilty."

"Happiness is a state of mind, so it's not a question of 'becoming happy' but of 'being happy' right now."

"Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance."

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

"I want to die, but not before my death."

"Man is defined only by his actions, by what he does. Man is not defined by what he intends."

"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others."

"Life has no meaning a priori. It is up to you to give it a meaning, and "value" is nothing but the meaning you choose."

"To be is to choose oneself."

"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

"We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are -- that is the fact."

"It is out of the present that the future is born."

"Don't walk in front of me… I may not follow. Don't walk behind me… I may not lead. Walk beside me… just be my friend."

"There is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving."

"We are our choices."

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

"What is important is not what happens to us, but what we do with what happens to us."

"Existence precedes essence."

"True generosity toward the future consists in giving everything to the present."

"Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal."

"J'apprendrais à pardonner plus vite"

"We exist to discover what brings us alive, to pursue those experiences and relationships that make existence worthwhile...."

"making new friends as an adult is hard"

"Preserving biodiversity and ecosystems"