Existence precedes essence.
L'existence precede l'essence.

Philosophers
Jean-Paul Sartre
France's foremost existentialist, Sartre held that existence precedes essence: we are defined by our choices. Being and Nothingness systematized radical freedom. He declined the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Jean-Paul Sartre's Other Quotes
Related Quotes
Stand a little out of my sunlight.
-- Diogenes of Sinope
If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.
-- Diogenes of Sinope
In the northern darkness there is a fish called Kun. The Kun is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans. It transforms into a bird called Peng. The back of the Peng is so vast one cannot tell how many thousands of li it spans.
-- Zhuang Zhou
A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.
-- Benedictus de Spinoza
World history is progress in the consciousness of freedom.
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
-- Søren Kierkegaard