Q0276

Jean-Paul Sartre

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Man is a useless passion.
Thinker Jean-Paul Sartre
School Existentialism
Source Being and Nothingness
Theme Existence
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Being and Nothingness, within the tradition of Existentialism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of existence, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Jean-Paul Sartre's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Jean-Paul Sartre. (n.d.). Man is a useless passion. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0276

MLA: Jean-Paul Sartre. “Man is a useless passion..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0276.

Chicago: Jean-Paul Sartre. “Man is a useless passion..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0276.

Same thinker

More from Jean-Paul Sartre

  1. Existence precedes essence.
  2. Man is condemned to be free.
  3. In choosing himself, man chooses all men.
  4. Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.

All quotations by Jean-Paul Sartre

Same theme

More on existence

  1. Marry, and you will regret it; do not marry, and you will also regret it.
  2. For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
  3. Man is always more than he knows of himself.
  4. Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
  5. The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.

Browse the existence theme