222 quotes
To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.
The Rebel (1951)
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
The Rebel (1951)
In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.
The Rebel (1951)
The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.
The Rebel (1951)
A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.
The Plague (1947)
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.
The Stranger (1942)
What must be remembered in any case is that secret complicity that joins the logical and the everyday to the tragic.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
If the world were clear, art would not exist.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Existence is illusory and it is eternal.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Time will prolong time, and life will serve life.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.
The Plague (1947)
One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing.