Skip to content

Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. . . . Cut from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.

— Martin Esslin The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

Another quote →

More quotes by Martin Esslin

The "Theatre of the Absurd" has become a catch-phrase, much used and much abused.

Introduction to Absurd Drama (1965)

The Theatre of the Absurd attacks the comfortable certainties of religious or political orthodoxy.

Introduction to Absurd Drama (1965)

The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being — that is, in terms of concrete stage images.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

The Theatre of the Absurd strives to express its sense of the senselessness of the human condition and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

The Theatre of the Absurd, on the other hand, tends toward a radical devaluation of language, toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself.

The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)

All Martin Esslin quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Martin Esslin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.