"Dostoyevsky writes: 'If God did not exist, everything would be permitted." This is the starting point of existentialism. In fact, everything is permitted if God does not exist and, consequently, man is abandoned, because he finds neither in himself nor outside of himself a possibility to cling. He doesn't find excuses first and foremost. If, in fact, existence precedes essence, the reference to a given and fixed human nature can never be explained; in other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom. If, on the other hand, God does not exist, we do not find before us values or orders that legitimize our conduct. Thus, we have neither behind nor in front of us, in the luminous domain of values, justifications or excuses. We're alone, no excuses. That is what I will say by saying that man is doomed to be free. Condemned, because he has not created himself, and yet, on the other hand, free, because once cast into the world he is responsible for everything he does (...)

The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never think that a beautiful passion is a devastating torrent that fatally leads man to certain acts and is therefore an excuse; he thinks that man is responsible for his passion. The existentialist will also not think that man can find help in a given sign on the earth that guides him; because he thinks that man deciphers the sign by himself as he prefers. He thinks, then, that man, without any support or help, is condemned at every moment to invent man. Ponge has said, in a very beautiful article: "Man is the future of man". It's perfectly accurate. Only if this is understood to mean that this future is inscribed in heaven, that God sees it, then it is false, for it would no longer be even a future. If it is understood that, whatever the man who appears, there is a future to be done, a virgin future awaiting him, then it is exact.