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Who really said it

Existence precedes essence

Written by Jean-Paul Sartre 1905–1980 · French philosopher, playwright & leading figure of existentialism
Verified In copyright

This is genuinely Sartre’s signature formula. He states “existence precedes essence” (French ‘l’existence précède l’essence’) in both ‘Being and Nothingness’ (1943) and his 1945 lecture ‘Existentialism Is a Humanism’ (published 1946), where he calls it the first principle of existentialism. The wording is confirmed in the standard English text of that lecture.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Existence precedes essence” Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (1945/1946); also in "Being and Nothingness" (1943)

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Still under copyright (rights held by Estate of Jean-Paul Sartre / Éditions Gallimard (and the respective English-translation publishers)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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Provenance

The source

Author
Jean-Paul Sartre
Work
Being and Nothingness (1943); Existentialism Is a Humanism (lecture 1945, pub. 1946)
Original French
“l’existence précède l’essence”
Translation
Standard English rendering; confirmed in Philip Mairet’s translation of the 1945 lecture

Atheistic existentialism… declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man… What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards.

From the 1945 lecture ‘Existentialism Is a Humanism’, where Sartre lays out the formula as existentialism’s first principle.

Read the lecture text (Existentialism Is a Humanism)

How we verified it

In copyright

The works containing this line — ‘Being and Nothingness’ (1943) and ‘Existentialism Is a Humanism’ (1946) — were first published well after 1931 and remain in copyright in the United States, held by Sartre’s estate and Éditions Gallimard; the English translations (Frechtman 1947, Mairet 1948, and later) carry their own translators’ copyrights. The three-word phrase itself is a short philosophical formula in common scholarly use.

Fact-check

Correctly Sartre — but the story has two twists

Unlike most quote-magnet lines, this one really is Sartre’s. The common errors are about where it comes from and who invented the idea, not whether he said it.

“It’s a direct quote from Being and Nothingness” Half-right

Sartre does affirm the formula in ‘Being and Nothingness’ (1943), but the clean, oft-quoted three-word slogan is delivered most explicitly in his 1945 lecture ‘Existentialism Is a Humanism’, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

“Sartre invented the whole idea” Overstated

The wording is his, but the thought has clear precedents: Heidegger wrote that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence,” and commentators trace antecedents to Kierkegaard and Schelling.

Bottom line: the phrase is authentically Sartre’s — his own formulation, stated in his own works — even though the underlying idea has philosophical ancestors.

Context

Why the line mattered

Sartre’s claim inverts a long tradition. For most of Western philosophy, a thing’s essence — its defining nature or purpose — came first, as a blueprint precedes the object. Sartre says that for human beings the reverse holds: we exist first, without a fixed nature, and only afterward define ourselves through our choices.

The consequence he draws is radical freedom: with no God and no given human nature to fall back on, “man is condemned to be free,” wholly responsible for what he makes of himself.

“Man first of all exists… and defines himself afterwards.”

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More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Existentialism Is a Humanism (full lecture text)marxists.org

Standard English text of the 1945 lecture where the formula is stated repeatedly.
Jean-Paul Sartreplato.stanford.edu

Stanford Encyclopedia entry confirming the phrase appears in both Being and Nothingness and the lecture.
Existence precedes essenceen.wikipedia.org

Overview of the formula, its French wording, and Heidegger/Kierkegaard/Schelling precedents.
Sartre: Existentialismiep.utm.edu

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy account of the formula and its role in Sartre's thought.
Being and Nothingnessbritannica.com

Britannica entry on the 1943 treatise that first articulates the principle.
Existence Precedes Essence: What Sartre Really Meantphilosophybreak.com

Accessible explainer of the phrase's meaning and context.

The true author

About Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

1905–1980 · French philosopher, playwright & founder-figure of existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre was the central figure of 20th-century French existentialism, author of the philosophical treatise Being and Nothingness (1943) and the play No Exit. His formula that human beings first exist and only afterward define themselves — “existence precedes essence” — became the movement’s defining slogan. He declined the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism” (lecture, 1945; publ. as ‘L’existentialisme est un humanisme’, Paris: Nagel, 1946); the formula also appears in ‘Being and Nothingness’ (‘L’Être et le néant’, Paris: Gallimard, 1943).

MLA (9th ed.)

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism Is a Humanism.” Translated by Philip Mairet, Nagel, 1946.

APA (7th ed.)

Sartre, J.-P. (1946). Existentialism is a humanism (P. Mairet, Trans.). Nagel. (Original work published 1945)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Existence precedes essence’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/existence-precedes-essence

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