Absurd — Philosophical Quotes
You ask the universe what it all means. The universe says nothing. That gap between the question and the silence is what Camus called the absurd. But here's the thing: he didn't think it was a reason to give up. Kafka turned it into comedy so dark it became revelation. Kierkegaard leapt through it toward faith. Camus himself decided the only honest response was to keep living, stubbornly, joyfully, in full awareness that no answer is coming.
27 quotes from 8 voices: Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, Søren Kierkegaard.
- “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Ev...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
- “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Ju...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
- “Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one w...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
- “A man without hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
- “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One m...” — Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
- “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
- “I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I...” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
- “Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
- “People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as ano...” — Albert Camus, The Stranger
- “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort o...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
- “There are no facts, only interpretations.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks
- “A cage went in search of a bird.” — Franz Kafka, The Zuerau Aphorisms
- “There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it can...” — Franz Kafka, The Zuerau Aphorisms
- “In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.” — Franz Kafka, The Zuerau Aphorisms
- “Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.” — Franz Kafka, The Trial
- “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is respon...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
- “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness ...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
- “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous...” — Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
- “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- “The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the close...” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
- “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.” — Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
- “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety
- “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Journals
- “What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know...” — Søren Kierkegaard, Journals
- “Do it or do not do it — you will regret both.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
- “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your lonelies...” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
- “Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground