222 quotes
It was as if I had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated.
The Stranger (1942)
Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.
A Happy Death (written 1936-38 (1971)
It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.
A Happy Death (written 1936-38 (1971)
I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.
The Stranger (1942)
For anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. Hence one must choose a master, God being out of style.
The Fall (1956)
This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory...Everything is forgotten, even great love.
A Happy Death (written 1936-38 (1971)
We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.
Helen's Exile (1948)
These are the Grand Inquisitors who imprison Christ and come to tell Him that His method is not correct, that universal happiness cannot be achieved by the immediate freedom of choosing between good and evil, but by the domination and unification of the world.
The Rebel (1951)
To have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.
A Happy Death (written 1936-38 (1971)
The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
I hope the dogs don't bark tonight. I always think it's mine.
The Stranger (1942)
Let's not beat around the bush; I love life — that's my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.
The Fall (1956)
The essential is to cease being free and to obey, in repentance, a greater rogue than oneself. When we are all guilty, that will be democracy.
The Fall (1956)
His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
I don't know whether or not it has been sufficiently pointed out that it is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?
Said at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg (1948)
It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly striving against their own nature.
I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)