Quotes: Shame
3 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“Hell is other people.”
Source: No Exit, final exchange (1944) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence appears in Sartre’s play No Exit and is spoken by the character Garcin in the play’s concluding lines.
Sartre’s line reframes hell as a human condition: being trapped under other people’s judgments so that you become an object for their gaze. It closes the play No Exit, where three dead characters are forced into mutual scrutiny. The point targets dependence on others’ evaluations, not company itself.
“The complaint of the depressive individual, ‘Nothing is possible,’ can only occur in a society that thinks, ‘Nothing is impossible.’”
Source: The Burnout Society (English translation by Erik Butler), 2015 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence appears in the published English translation of The Burnout Society and is attributed to Byung‑Chul Han.
- What remains uncertain
- The wording given here follows Erik Butler’s English translation; the original work was written in German (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft).
Han pinpoints a modern paradox: a culture that insists ‘‘Nothing is impossible’’ can turn that promise into a demand, making personal failure feel like moral failure and producing exhaustion and depression.
“The opposite of depression is expression. What comes out of you doesn’t make you sick; what stays in there does.”
Source: The Gift: 14 Lessons to Save Your Life, chapter "No Prozac at Auschwitz" (2020) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording appears in Edith Eva Eger’s The Gift, in the chapter “No Prozac at Auschwitz,” where she frames it as part of her approach.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is verified; minor textual variants appear across interviews and some editions (e.g., us/you, ill/sick).
Eger’s line stakes a therapeutic claim: hiding painful feelings doesn’t erase them—unprocessed emotions can fester inside. She presents expression as a healing practice in The Gift, not a clinical definition of depression.