“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give life a meaning.”

 
Jean Paul Sartre is and always has been my favourite philosopher. I’ve been drawn to Existentialism since my early teens and its tenets still ring true to me now.
The notion that we are free and therefore responsible for our lives has been a source of real strength and real anxiety for most of my life.

Here are just a few quotes from sartre:

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

We do not judge the people we love.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

I hate victims who respect their executioners.

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.