Existentialism Is a Humanism
Jean-Paul Sartre · 1946
"Sartre's central claim, 'existence precedes essence' — humans have no predetermined nature or purpose; we define ourselves entirely through the choices we make, and that total freedom is also total responsibility."
Delivered as a 1945 lecture responding to critics who called existentialism nihilistic and pessimistic, Sartre's core move is 'existence precedes essence': unlike a manufactured object, built to a blueprint that exists before the object does, a human being exists first, with no given nature, and only afterward defines what they are through action. This makes humans radically free — and because there's no God or fixed human nature to lean on or blame, every choice is also, implicitly, a claim about what any human being should do in that situation.
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The Myth of Sisyphus
"The absurd is the unresolvable collision between the human need for meaning and the universe's indifferent silence — the only honest response is conscious revolt, not suicide or false belief."