Albert Camus (1913–1960)
Camus grew up poor in Algeria, lost his father before he could remember him, and became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate in literature. He is best known for asking whether life is worth living when the universe offers no meaning, and for answering, essentially: yes, more than ever. He split with Sartre over politics. He wrote novels that read like philosophy and philosophy that reads like literature. The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus. Each one a different way of staring into the void without blinking.
Concepts
absurd, agency, alienation, authenticity, conformity, freedom, loneliness, love, meaning, praxis, rebellion, solidarity
Quotes (23)
- “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Ev...” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Ju...” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one w...” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “A man without hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little conn...” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “I rebel; therefore we exist.” — The Rebel (1951)
- “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One m...” — The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free tha...” — The Rebel (1951)
- “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.” — The Stranger (1942)
- “I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I...” — The Stranger (1942)
- “Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.” — The Stranger (1942)
- “I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolut...” — The Stranger (1942)
- “People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as ano...” — The Stranger (1942)
- “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invinci...” — Return to Tipasa (1954)
- “There are more things to admire in men than to despise.” — The Plague (1947)
- “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunc...” — The Rebel (1951)
- “The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions ...” — The Plague (1947)
- “I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. Fo...” — The Plague (1947)
- “What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunc...” — The Rebel (1951)
- “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” — Return to Tipasa (1954)
- “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” — The Rebel (1951)
- “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” — Return to Tipasa (1954)
- “I know of only one duty, and that is to love.” — Notebooks 1935-1942 (1962)