Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence. Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.

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

Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.

Man is what he wills himself to be.

Man is not only that which he conceives himself to be, but that which he wills himself to be...

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

El hombre no es nada más que su proyecto, no existe más que en la medida en que se realiza, no es, por lo tanto, más que el conjunto de sus actos, nada más que su vida.

Each man is everything to himself, for with his death everything is dead for him. That is why each of us thinks he is everything to everyone. We must not judge nature by ourselves, but by its own standards.

L'homme n'est rien d'autre que son projet, il n'existe que dans la mesure où il se réalise, il n'est donc rien d'autre que l'ensemble de ses actes, rien d'autre que sa vie.

There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes — within the limits of endowment and environment — he has made out of himself.

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

Every man is what he is, because of the dominating thoughts which he permits to occupy his mind.