(Being and Nothingness, 1943)

Consciousness is a being whose existence posits its essence, and inversely it is consciousness of a being, whose essence implies its existence; that is, in which appearance lays claim to being. Being is everywhere...We must understand that this being is no other than the transphenomenal being of phenomena and not a noumenal being which is hidden behind them...It requires simply that the being of that which appears does not exist only in so far as it appears. The transphenomenal being of what exists for consciousness is itself in itself.... Consciousness is the revealed-revelation of existents, and existents appear before consciousness on the foundation of their being...Consciousness can always pass beyond the existent, not toward its being, but toward the meaning of this being. A fundamental characteristic of its transcendence is to transcend the ontic toward the ontological. The meaning of the being of the existent in so far as it reveals itself to consciousness is the phenomenon of being...This elucidation of the meaning of being is valid only for the being of the phenomenon....For being is the being of becoming and due to this fact it is beyond becoming. It is what it is. This means that by itself it can not even be what it is not...It is full positivity. It knows no otherness; it never posits itself as other-than-another-being. It can support no connection with the other. It is itself indefinitely and it exhausts itself in being...Consciousness absolutely can not derive from anything, either from another being, or from a possibility, or from a necessary law. Uncreated, without reason for being, without any connection with another being, being-in-itself is de trop for eternity."