Background Image
...
An Intense Feeling Carries With It Its Own Universe, Magnificent Or Wretched As The Case May Be.
-Albert Camus
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

An Intense Feeling Carries

Albert Camus
...
An Intense Feeling Carries With It Its Own Universe, Magnificent Or Wretched As The Case May Be.

Understanding the Quote: "an intense feeling carries with it its own universe, magnificent or wretched..."

This quote by Albert Camus reflects deeply on the theme of feelings. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Feelings, May, Intense, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Albert Camus interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Albert Camus

Albert Camus is celebrated for insightful thoughts on feelings and may. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 8
Topic
Feelings
May
Intense
More From Albert Camus
My Profession Lent Itself Nicely To My Vocation For Heights. It Freed Me Of Any Bitterness Towards My Fellow Men, Who Were Alwaysin My Debt, Without My Owing Them Anything. It Placed Me Above The Judge Whom, I In Turn Judged, Above The Defendant Whom I Forced Into Gratitude.
Gratitude
Men
Law
Everything Is True, And Nothing Is True!
Existentialism
Stranger
It Is A Well-known Fact That We Always Recognize Our Homeland At The Moment We Are About To Lose It.
Facts
Well Known
Homeland
You Will Never Be Happy If You Continue To Search For What Happiness Consists Of. You Will Never Live If You Are Looking For The Meaning Of Life.
Inspirational
Life
Happiness
We Must Stitch Up What Has Been Torn Apart, Render Justice Imaginable In The World Which Is So Obviously Unjust, Make Happiness Meaningful For Nations Poisoned By The Misery Of This Century. Naturally, It Is A Superhuman Task. But Tasks Are Called Superhuman When Men Take A Long Time To Complete Them, That Is All.
Meaningful
Hope
Men
In Art, Rebellion Is Consummated And Perpetuated In The Act Of Real Creation, Not In Criticism Or Commentary.
Art
Real
Criticism
Everyone Would Like To Behave Like A Pagan, With Everyone Else Behaving Like A Christian.
Christian
Pagan
Behave
Perhaps We Cannot Prevent This World From Being A World In Which Children Are Tortured. But We Can Reduce The Number Of Tortured Children.
Children
Numbers
World
The Reasoning Is Classic In Its Clarity. If God Does Not Exist, Kirilov Is God. If God Does Not Exist, Kirilov Must Kill Himself. Kirilov Must Therefore Kill Himself To Become God. That Logic Is Absurd, But It Is What Is Needed.
Doe
Logic
Classic
Life Is Meaningless, But Worth Living, Provided You Recognize It's Meaningless.
Life Is
Worth Living
Meaningless
By Definition, A Government Has No Conscience. Sometimes It Has A Policy, But Nothing More.
Government
Definitions
Politics
A Man Who Has Become Conscious Of The Absurd Is For Ever Bound To It.
Men
Absurd
Conscious
The Contradiction Is This: Man Rejects The World As It Is, Without Accepting The Necessity Of Escaping It. In Fact, Men Cling To The World And By Far The Majority Do Not Want To Abandon It.
Men
Escaping
Majority
This Divorce Between Man And His Life, The Actor And His Setting, Is Properly The Feeling Of Absurdity.
Divorce
Men
Absurdity Of Life
I Love Life - That’s My Real Weakness. I Love It So Much That I Am Incapable Of Imagining What Is Not Life.
Life
Real
Weakness
I Don't Want To Represent Man As He Is, But Only As He Might Be.
Men
Want
Might
That Must Be Wonderful; I Have No Idea Of What It Means.
Mean
Ideas
Wonderful
Humans Are Creatures, Who Spent Their Lifes Trying To Convince Themselves, That Their Existence Is Not Absurd
Trying
Absurd
Existence
I Am Alive Again, Now That I Can No Longer Stand To Live.
Life
Despair
Alive
The Only Really Committed Artist Is He Who, Without Refusing To Take Part In The Combat, At Least Refuses To Join The Regular Armies And Remains A Freelance.
Army
Artist
Combat
The Human Heart Has A Tiresome Tendency To Label As Fate Only What Crushes It. But Happiness Likewise, In Its Way, Is Without Reason, Since It Is Inevitable.
Crush
Heart
Fate
And Never Have I Felt So Deeply At One And The Same Time So Detached From Myself And So Present In The World.
World
Felt
Detached
The Poor Man Whom Everyone Speaks Of, The Poor Man Whom Everyone Pities, One Of The Repulsive Poor From Whom Charitable Souls Keep Their Distance, He Has Still Said Nothing. Or, Rather, He Has Spoken Through The Voice Of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At Least, They Said So. And These Shameful Impostures Fed Their Authors. Cruel Irony, The Poor Man Tormented With Hunger Feeds Those Who Plead His Case.
Distance
Men
Voice
True Artists Scorn Nothing.
Artist
Scorn
True Artists
The Most Important Thing You Do Everyday You Live Is Deciding Not To Kill Yourself.
Philosophical
Everyday
Important
Intelligence In Chains Loses In Lucidity What It Gains In Intensity.
Intelligence
Gains
Intensity
Where Would His Torture Be, Indeed, If At Every Step The Hope Of Succeeding Upheld Him?
Succeed
Steps
Torture
Crime Too Is A Form Of Solitude, Even If One Thousand Get Together To Commit It. And It Is Right For Me To Die Alone, After Having Lived And Killed Alone.
Solitude
Together
Crime
Sometimes, Carrying On, Just Carrying On, Is The Superhuman Achievement.
Inspirational
Moving On
Encouraging
The Absurd Is Sin Without God.
Sin
Absurd
Absurdity
The Look Of Success, When It Is Worn A Certain Way, Would Infuriate A Jackass.
Success
Discipline
Way
Who Taught You All This, Doctor?" The Reply Came Promptly: "suffering.
Doctors
Suffering
Taught
Nothing Can Discourage The Appetite For Divinity In The Heart Of Man.
Heart
Men
Divinity
Do Not Wait For The Last Judgment. It Takes Place Every Day.
Waiting
Lasts
Judgment
A True Masterpiece Does Not Tell Everything.
Doe
Masterpiece
I Hope The Dogs Don't Bark Tonight. I Always Think It's Mine
Dog
Thinking
Tonight
No Ends, Simply Means.
Mean
Ends
L'absurde Est La Notion Essentielle Et La Premie' Re Ve? Rite? . The Absurd Is The Fundamental Idea And The First Truth.
Ideas
Fundamentals
Firsts
There Is No Fate That Cannot Be Surmounted By Scorn.
Change
Fate
Destiny
The Tragedy Is Not That We Are Alone, But That We Cannot Be. At Times I Would Give Anything In The World To No Longer Be Connected By Anything To This Universe Of Men.
Men
Giving
Tragedy
Always Go Too Far, Because That's Where You'll Find The Truth
Inspirational
Believe
Anime
The Soul Of A Murderer Is Blind
Soul
Blind
Murderer
Seeking What Is True Is Not Seeking What Is Desirable.
Life
Truth
Atheism
There Are Always Reasons For Murdering A Man. But There Is No Justification For His Existence.
Men
Reason
Existence
Every Stone Here Sweats With Suffering, I Know That. I Have Never Looked At Them Without A Feeling Of Anguish. But Deep In My Heart I Know That The Most Wretched Among You Have Seen A Divine Face Emerge From Their Darkness. That Is The Face You Are Asked To See.
Heart
Sweat
Darkness
The Only Serious Question In Life Is Whether To Kill Yourself Or Not.
Life
Suicide
Philosophy
Absolute Virtue Is Impossible And The Republic Of Forgiveness Leads, With Implacable Logic, To The Republic Of The Guillotine.
Forgiveness
Republic
Impossible
The Principles Which Men Give To Themselves End By Overwhelming Their Noblest Intentions.
Men
Giving
Principles
To Lose The Touch Of Flowers And Women's Hands Is The Supreme Separation.
Flower
Hands
Separation
What The World Expects Of Christians Is That Christians Should Speak Out, Loud And Clear... In Such A Way That Never A Doubt, Never The Slightest Doubt, Could Rise In The Heart Of The Simplest Man.
Christian
Heart
Men
The Ancients, Even Though They Believed In Destiny , Believed Primarily In Nature , In Which They Participated Wholeheartedly. To Rebel Against Nature Amounted To Rebelling Against Oneself. It Was Butting One's Head Against A Wall.
Wall
Destiny
Rebel
What Made Me Run Away Was Doubtless Not So Much The Fear Of Settling Down, But Of Settling Down Permanently In Something Ugly.
Running
Ugly
Settling
But Sometimes It Takes More Courage To Live Than To Shoot Yourself.
Sometimes
But Who Would Dare Condemn Me In This World With No Judges, Where No One Is Innocent!
Judging
Guilt
World
To Those Who Despair Of Everything Reason Cannot Provide A Faith, But Only Passion, And In This Case It Must Be The Same Passion That Lay At The Root Of The Despair, Namely Humiliation And Hatred.
Passion
Roots
Hatred
Too Many Have Dispensed With Generosity In Order To Practice Charity.
Order
Practice
Generosity
It Is Better To Burn Than To Disappear.
Disappear
My Dear, In The Midst Of Hate, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Love. In The Midst Of Tears, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Smile. In The Midst Of Chaos, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Calm. I Realized, Through It All, That… In The Midst Of Winter, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Summer. And That Makes Me Happy. For It Says That No Matter How Hard The World Pushes Against Me, Within Me, There’s Something Stronger – Something Better, Pushing Right Back. Truly Yours, Albert Camus
Summer
Wisdom
Hate
Truth Is Mysterious, Elusive, Always To Be Conquered. Liberty Is Dangerous, As Hard To Live With As It Is Elating. We Must March Toward These Two Goals, Painfully But Resolutely, Certain In Advance Of Our Failings On So Long A Road.
Two
Long
Goal
I Knew A Pure Heart Who Refused Tot Be Mistrustful.... He Had Written At His Doorstep: "from Wherever You Are, Enter And Be Welcome". Who Do You Think Responded To This Lovely Invitation? The Militia, Who Made Themselves At Home And Gutted Him.
Trust
Home
Heart
What Did It Matter If He Existed For Two Or For Twenty Years? Happiness Was The Fact That He Had Existed.
Two
Years
Matter
To Abandon Oneself To Principles Is Really To Die - And To Die For An Impossible Love Which Is The Contrary Of Love.
Love
Principles
Impossible
... We Need The Sweet Pain Of Anticipation To Tell Us We Are Really Alive.
Sweet
Pain
Needs
In Order To Exist, Man Must Rebel.
Men
Order
Challenges
At Times I Feel Myself Overtaken By An Immense Tenderness For These People Around Me Who Live In The Same Century.
People
Happiness And Love
Century
Beauty Is Unbearable, Drives Us To Despair, Offering Us For A Minute The Glimpse Of An Eternity That We Should Like To Stretch Out Over The Whole Of Time.
Love
Beauty
Time
What More Ghastly Image Can Be Called Up Than That Of A Man Betrayed By His Body Who, Simply Because He Did Not Die In Time, Lives Out The Comedy While Awaiting The End, Face To Face With That God He Does Not Adore, Serving Him As He Served Life, Kneeling Before A Void And Arms Outstretched Toward A Heaven Without Eloquence That He Knows To Be Also Without Depth?
Men
Heaven
Body
Nihilism Is Not Only Despair And Negation, But Above All The Desire To Despair And To Negate.
Despair
Nihilism
Desire
For Ever, I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself.
Stranger
Sisyphus
Happiness And The Absurd Are Two Sons Of The Same Earth. They Are Inseparable. It Would Be A Mistake To Say That Happiness Necessarily Springs From The Absurd Discovery. It Happens As Well That The Felling Of The Absurd Springs From Happiness. "i Conclude That All Is Well," Says Oedipus, And That Remark Is Sacred. It Echoes In The Wild And Limited Universe Of Man. It Teaches That All Is Not, Has Not Been, Exhausted. It Drives Out Of This World A God Who Had Come Into It With Dissatisfaction And A Preference For Futile Suffering. It Makes Of Fate A Human Matter, Which Must Be Settled Among Men.
Happiness
Mistake
Spring
Violence Is Both Unavoidable And Unjustifiable.
Violence
This World, Such As It Is, Is Not Tolerable. Therefore I Need The Moon, Or Happiness, Or Immortality, I Need Something Which Is Perhaps Demented, But Which Is Not Of This World.
Moon
World
Needs
No Matter What Cause One Defends, It Will Suffer Permanent Disgrace If One Resorts To Blind Attacks On Crowds Of Innocent People.
People
Suffering
Crowds
Yes, And When The Love Of Life Disappears, No Meaning Can Console Us.
Inspirational
Motivational
Love Life
Revolution, In Order To Be Creative, Cannot Do Without Either A Moral Or Metaphysical Rule To Balance The Insanity Of History.
Order
History
Creative
For If There Is A Sin Against Life, It Consists Perhaps Not So Much In Despairing Of Life As In Hoping For Another Life And In Eluding The Implacable Grandeur Of This Life.
Life
Success
Humor
But Too Many People Now Climb Onto The Cross Merely To Be Seen From A Greater Distance, Even If They Have To Trample Somewhat On The One Who Has Been There So Long.
Distance
Long
People
There Is No More Futile Punishment Than Futile And Hopeless Labor.
Success
Work
Punishment
I Have A Very Old And Very Faithful Attachment For Dogs. I Like Them Because They Always Forgive.
Dog
Attachment
Owning A Pet
I Felt As Though I Was Partly Unlearning What I Had Never Learned And Yet Knew So Well: I Mean, How To Live.
Mean
Wells
Felt
To Stay Or To Go, It Amounted To The Same Thing.
How Many Crimes Are Permitted Simply Because Their Authors Could Not Endure Being Wrong.
Integrity
Law
Justice
I've Never Really Had Much Of An Imagination. But Still I Would Try To Picture The Exact Moment When The Beating Of My Heart Would No Longer Be Going On Inside My Head.
Heart
Imagination
Trying
What Is Called A Reason For Living Is Also An Excellent Reason For Dying.
Dying
Reason
Excellent
We Are Not So Mad As To Think That We Shall Create A World In Which Murder Will Not Occur. We Are Fighting For A World In Which Murder Will No Longer Be Legal.
Fighting
Thinking
Mad
Real Fulfillment, For The Man Who Allows Absolutely Free Rein To His Desires, And Who Much Dominate Everything, Lies In Hatred.
Real
Lying
Men
There Is Not A Single True Work Of Art That Has Not In The End Added To The Inner Freedom Insight And Life Of Each Person Who Has Known And Loved It.
Art
Ends
Insight
You Cannot Acquire Experience By Making Experiments. You Cannot Create Experience. You Must Undergo It.
Inspirational
Science
Technology
This Is The Century Of Fear.
Fear
Century
Do Not Be Afraid Of Spending Quality Time By Yourself. Find Meaning Or Don’t Find Meaning But “steal” Some Time And Give It Freely And Exclusively To Your Own Self. Opt For Privacy And Solitude. That Doesn’t Make You Antisocial Or Cause You To Reject The Rest Of The World. But You Need To Breathe. And You Need To Be.
Self
Giving
Solitude
In Truth, I Was So Good At Being A Man, With Such Plenitude And Simplicity, That I Thought I Was Something Of A Superman.
Men
Simplicity
Arrogance
It Is Natural To Give A Clear View Of The World After Accepting The Idea That It Must Be Clear.
Views
Ideas
Giving
But What Are A Hundred Million Deaths? When One Has Served In A War, One Hardly Knows What A Dead Man Is, After A While. And Since A Dead Man Has No Substance Unless One Has Actually Seen Him Dead, A Hundred Million Corpses Broadcast Through History Are No More Than A Puff Of Smoke In The Imagination.
War
Men
Imagination
It Is Necessary To Fall In Love... If Only To Provide An Alibi For All The Random Despair You Are Going To Feel Anyway.
Falling In Love
Despair
Existentialism
If Pimps And Thieves Everywhere Were Always Punished, Honest People Would All Believe Themselves Always To Be Innocent.
Believe
People
Justice
Time Will Prolong Time, And Life Will Serve Life. In This Field That Is Both Limited And Bulging With Possibilities, Everything To Himself, Except His Lucidity, Seems Unforeseeable To Him. What Rule, Then, Could Emanate From That Unreasonable Order? The Only Truth That Might Seem Instructive To Him Is Not Formal: It Comes To Life And Unfolds In Men. The Absurd Mind Cannot So Much Expect Ethical Rules At The End Of Its Reasoning As, Rather, Illustrations And The Breath Of Human Lives.
Men
Illustration
Order
If Christianity Is Pessimistic As To Man, It Is Optimistic As To Human Destiny. Well, I Can Say That, Pessimistic As To Human Destiny, I Am Optimistic As To Man.
Optimistic
Destiny
Men
The Most Eloquent Eulogy Of Capitalism Was Made By Its Greatest Enemy. Marx Is Only Anti-capitalist In So Far As Capitalism Is Out Of Date.
Eulogy
Enemy
Made
We Can't Do Without Dominating Others Or Being Served.... The Essential Thing, In Sum, Is Being Able To Get Angry Without The Other Person Being Able To Answer Back.
Power
Answers
Able
The World In Which We Were Called To Exist Was An Absurd World, And There Was No Other In Which We Could Take Refuge.
World
Absurd
Refuge
The Realization That Life Is Absurd And Cannot Be An End, But Only A Beginning. This Is A Truth Nearly All Great Minds Have Taken As Their Starting Point. It Is Not This Discovery That Is Interesting, But Theconsequences And Rules Of Action Drawn From It.
Life
Taken
Discovery
Every Man, And For Stronger Reasons, Every Artist, Wants To Be Recognized. So Do I.
Artist
Men
Stronger
In Fact, Other People Create For Lack Of Power. I, On The Other Hand, Do Not Need A Work: I Live.
Life
Creativity
Power
Capital Punishment Is The Most Premeditated Of Murders, To Which No Criminal's Deed, However Calculated Can Be Compared. For There To Be An Equivalency, The Death Penalty Would Have To Punish A Criminal Who Had Warned His Victim Of The Date At Which He Would Inflict A Horrible Death On Him And Who, From That Moment Onward, Had Confined Him At His Mercy For Months. Such A Monster Is Not Encountered In Private Life.
Death
Punishment
Dying
If There Is A Soul, It Is A Mistake To Believe That It Is Given To Us Fully Created. It Is Created Here, Throughout A Whole Life. And Living Is Nothing Else But That Long And Painful Bringing Forth.
Mistake
Believe
Long
Poor And Free Rather Than Rich And Enslaved. Of Course, Men Want To Be Both Rich And Free, And This Is What Leads Them At Times To Be Poor And Enslaved.
Men
Want
Rich
There Always Comes A Time When One Must Choose Between Contemplation And Action. This Is Called Becoming A Man.
Men
Becoming
Action
Of Course, True Love Is Exceptional - Two Or Three Times A Century, More Or Less. The Rest Of The Time There Is Vanity Or Boredom.
Love Is
Vanity
Two
Freedom Is Nothing But A Chance To Be Better.
Freedom
4th Of July
Independence
Truth And Freedom, Having Few Lovers, Are Demanding Mistresses.
Honesty
Integrity
Mistress
In Order To Be Created, A Work Of Art Must First Make Use Of The Dark Forces Of The Soul
Art
Dark
Order
To Two Men Living The Same Number Of Years, The World Always Provides The Same Sum Of Experiences. It Is Up To Us To Be Conscious Of Them.
Men
Years
Two
The Gods Had Condemned Sisyphus To Ceaselessly Rolling A Rock To The Top Of A Mountain, Whence The Stone Would Fall Back Of Its Own Weight. They Had Thought With Some Reason That There Is No More Dreadful Punishment Than Futile And Hopeless Labor.
Fall
Punishment
Rocks
One Plays At Being Immortal And After A Few Weeks One Doesn't Even Know Whether Or Not One Can Hang On Till The Next Day.
Play
Next Day
Week
It Should Be Pointed Out For Our Own Guidance In The West That The Continual Signing Of Manifestoes And Protests Is One Of The Surest Ways Of Undermining The Efficacy And Dignity Of The Intellectual. There Exists A Permanent Blackmail That We All Know And That We Must Have The Often Solitary Courage To Resist.
Intellectual
Way
West
I Sometimes Need To Write Things Which I Cannot Completely Control But Which Therefore Prove That What Is In Me Is Stronger Than I Am.
Writing
Stronger
Needs
Every Authentic Work Of Art Is A Gift Offered To The Future.
Art
Giving
Art Is
Betrayal Answers Betrayal, The Mask Of Love Is Answered By The Disappearance Of Love.
Betrayal
Love Is
Happiness And Love
At A Certain Level Of Suffering Or Injustice No One Can Do Anything For Anyone. Pain Is Solitary.
Pain
Suffering
Levels
Every Writer, Big Or Small, Needs To Say Or Write That The Genius Is Always Hissed At By His Contemporaries. Naturally, This Is Not True, It Happens Only Occasionally And Often By Chance. But This Need Within The Writer Is Enlightening.
Writing
Needs
Genius
As For Hitler, His Professed Religion Unhesitatingly Juxtaposed The God-providence And Valhalla. Actually His God Was An Argument At A Political Meeting And A Manner Of Reaching An Impressive Climax At The End Of Speeches.
Political
Atheism
Valhalla
The Words That Reverberate For Us At The Confines Of This Long Adventure Of Rebellion Are Not Formulas For Optimism, For Which We Have No Possible Use In The Extremities Of Our Unhappiness, But Words Of Courage And Intelligence Which, On The Shores Of The Eternal Seas, Even Have The Qualities Of Virtue.
Adventure
Sea
Long
I Was Absent At The Moment I Took Up The Most Space.
Space
Moments
Absent
You Always Get Exaggerated Notions Of Things You Don't Know Anything About.
Notion
Knows
Exaggerated
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.
Thinking
People
Normal
Those Who Lack The Courage Will Always Find A Philosophy To Justify It.
Inspirational
Courage
Philosophy
A Work Of Art Is A Confession.
Art
Confession
Art Is
I Was Always Able To Understand My Friend Who Decided To Quit Smoking And Who, Through An Effort Of Will, Succeeded In Doing So. One Morning, He Opened The Newspaper, Read That The First H- Bomb Had Exploded, Found Out About The Bomb's Admirable Effects And Went Straight To The Tobacconist's.
Morning
Health
Smoking
That's The Way Man Is, Cher Monsieur. He Has Two Faces: He Can't Love Without Self-love.
Men
Self
Two
Just As All Thought, And Primarily That Of Non-signification, Signifies Something, So There Is No Art That Has No Signification.
Art
Meaning Of Life
Life Has No Meaning
I Am Too Much In Love With My Lies And Hypocrisies Not To Confess Them Fervently.
Lying
Hypocrisy
Too Much
When The Throne Of God Is Overturned, The Rebel Realizes That It Is Now His Own Responsibility To Create The Justice, Order, And Unity That He Sought In Vain Within His Own Condition, And In This Way To Justify The Fall Of God. Then Begins The Desperate Effort To Create, At The Price Of Crime And Murder If Necessary, The Dominion Of Man.
Fall
Responsibility
Men
The Only Conception Of Freedom I Can Have Is That Of The Prisoner Or The Individual In The Midst Of The State. The Only One I Know Is Freedom Of Thought And Action.
Freedom
Action
Individual
I Have Never Been Able, Really, To Regret Anything In All My Life. I Have Always Been Far Much Too Absorbed In The Present Moment Or The Immediate Future To Think Back.
Life
Regret
Thinking
For Rich People, The Sky Is Just An Extra, A Gift Of Nature. The Poor, On The Other Hand, Can See It As It Is, A Gift Of Infinite Grace.
Hands
Sky
People
There Is No Love Of Life Without Despair Of Life.
Love Life
Despair
No Love
He Was Expressing His Certainty That My Appeal Would Be Granted, But I Was Carrying The Burden Of A Sin From Which I Had To Free Myself. According To Him, Human Justice Was Nothing And Divine Justice Was Everything. I Pointed Out It Was The Former That Had Condemned Me.
Divine Justice
Would Be
Sin
I Feel Like Getting Married, Or Committing Suicide, Or Subscribing To L'illustration. Something Desperate, You Know.
Suicide
Illustration
Married
Some People Talk In Their Sleep. Lecturers Talk While Other People Sleep.
Sleep
Insomnia
People
I Had Only A Little Time Left And I Didn't Want To Waste It On God.
Time
Want
Littles
Germany Collapsed As A Result Of Having Engaged In A Struggle For Empire With The Concepts Of Provincial Politics.
War
Struggle
World
... Unhappiness Is Like Marriage. We Believe We Chose It, But Then It Is Choosing Us. That Is How It Is, We Can Do Nothing About It.
Marriage
Freedom
Believe
He's Incapable Of Suffering For A Long Time, Or Being Happy For A Long Time. Which Means That He's Incapable Of Anything Really Worth While.
Mean
Long
Suffering
Love Cannot Accept What It Is. Everywhere On Earth It Cries Out Against Kindness, Compassion, Intelligence, Everything That Leads To Compromise. Love Demands The Impossible, The Absolute, The Sky On Fire, Inexhaustible Springtime, Life After Death, And Death Itself Transfigured Into Eternal Life.
Friendship
Kindness
Compassion
What The World Requires Of The Christians Is That They Should Continue To Be Christians.
Christian
World
Should
Men Are Never Convinced Of Your Reasons, Of Your Sincerity, Of The Seriousness Of Your Sufferings, Except By Your Death. So Long As You Are Alive, Your Case Is Doubtful; You Have A Right Only To Their Skepticism.
Death
Men
Long
I Draw From The Absurd Three Consequences: My Revolt, My Liberty, My Passion.
Passion
Liberty
Three
Once One's Up Against It, The Precise Manner Of One's Death Has Obviously Small Importance.
Death
Importance
Precise
She Was Waiting, But She Didn't Know For What. She Was Aware Only Of Her Solitude, And Of The Penetrating Cold, And Of A Greater Weight In The Region Of Her Heart.
Heart
Waiting
Solitude
Maman Died Today. Or Yesterday Maybe, I Don't Know. I Got A Telegram From The Home: 'mother Deceased. Funeral Tomorrow. Faithfully Yours.' That Doesn't Mean Anything. Maybe It Was Yesterday.
Mother
Home
Mean
Capital Punishment Is The Most Premeditated Of Murders.
Punishment
Death Penalty
Murder
Revolt And Revolution Both Wind Up At The Same Crossroads: The Police, Or Folly.
Wind
Police
Revolution
On The Whole, Men Are More Good Than Bad; That, However, Isn't The Real Point. But They Are More Or Less Ignorant, And It Is This That We Call Vice Or Virtue; The Most Incorrigible Vice Being That Of An Ignorance That Fancies It Knows Everything And Therefore Claims For Itself The Right To Kill. The Soul Of The Murderer Is Blind; And There Can Be No True Goodness Nor True Love Without The Utmost Clear-sightedness.
Real
Ignorance
Men
We Must Admit That Today Conformity Is On The Left. To Be Sure, The Right Is Not Brilliant. But The Left Is In Complete Decadence, A Prisoner Of Words, Caught In Its Own Vocabulary, Capable Merely Of Stereotyped Replies, Constantly At A Loss When Faced With Truth, From Which It Nevertheless Claimed To Derive Its Laws. The Left Is Schizophrenic And Needs Doctoring Through Pitiless Self-criticism, Exercise Of The Heart, Close Reasoning, And A Little Modesty.
Heart
Loss
Exercise
The World Expects Of Christians That They Will Raise Their Voices So Loudly And Clearly And So Formulate Their Protest That Not Even The Simplest Man Can Have The Slightest Doubt About What They Are Saying. Further, The World Expects Of Christians That They Will Eschew All Fuzzy Abstractions And Plant Themselves Squarely In Front Of The Bloody Face Of History. We Stand In Need Of Folk Who Have Determined To Speak Directly And Unmistakably And Come What May, To Stand By What They Have Said.
Christian
Religious
Men
[paris] Is Dirty. It Has Pigeons And Black Yards. The People Have White Skin.
Dirty
Cities
Paris
I Enjoyed My Own Nature To The Fullest, And We All Know There Lies Happiness, Although, To Soothe One Another Mutually, We Occasionally Pretend To Condemn Such Joys As Selfishness.
Happiness
Lying
Joy
When You Have Once Seen The Glow Of Happiness On The Face Of A Beloved Person, You Know That A Man Can Have No Vocation But To Awaken That Light On The Faces Surrounding Him. In The Depth Of Winter, I Finally Learned That Within Me There Lay An Invincible Summer.
Life
Happiness
Summer
Utopia Is That Which Is In Contradiction With Reality.
Reality
Utopia
Contradiction
Je Puis Nier Une Chose Sans Me Croire Obligé De La Salir Ou De Retirer Aux Autres Le Droit D'y Croire.
Atheist
One Recognizes One's Course By Discovering The Paths That Stray From It.
Path
Discovering
Recognise
Every Great Work Makes The Human Face More Admirable And Richer, And This Is Its Whole Secret.
Secret
Faces
Great Work
We Used To Wonder Where War Lived, What It Was That Made It So Vile. And Now We Realize That We Know Where It Lives... Inside Ourselves.
Peace
War
Realizing
Great Feelings Take With Them Their Own Universe, Splendid Or Abject.
Feelings
Splendid
Sisyphus
I Had Been Right I Was Still Right I Was Always Right. I Had Lived My Life One Way And I Could Just As Well Lived It Another. I Had Done This And I Hadn T Done That. I Hadn T Done This Thing And I Had Done Another. And So?
Done
Way
Wells
Mistakes Are Joyful, Truth Infernal.
Mistake
Philosophical
Joyful
Truth, Like Light, Is Blinding. Lies, On The Other Hand, Are A Beautiful Dusk, Which Enhances The Value Of Each Object.
Beautiful
Truth
Lying
Thus, In A Middle Course Between These Heights And Depths, They Drifted Through Life Rather Than Lived, The Prey Of Aimless Days And Sterile Memories, Like Wandering Shadows That Could Have Acquired Substance Only By Consenting To Root Themselves In The Solid Earth Of Their Distress.
Memories
Roots
Shadow
If Only Nature Is Real And If, In Nature, Only Desire And Destruction Are Legitimate, Then, In That All Humanity Does Not Suffice To Assuage The Thirst For Blood, The Path Of Destruction Must Lead To Universal Annihilation.
Nature
Real
Blood
[many Artists], Even The Greatest Ones, Are Not Sure Of Their Own Existence. So They Search For Proof, They Judge, They Condemn. It Strengthens Them, It Is The Beginnings Of Existence. They Are Alone!
Art
Judging
Criticism
There's The Risk Of Being Loved...and That Would Keep Me From Being Happy.
Risk
Being Loved
My Chief Occupation, Despite Appearances, Has Always Been Love.
Love
Life
Occupation
Every Time I Hear A Political Speech Or I Read Those Of Our Leaders, I Am Horrified At Having, For Years, Heard Nothing Which Sounded Human. It Is Always The Same Words Telling The Same Lies.
Lying
Years
Leader
Whoever Today Speaks Of Human Existence In Terms Of Power, Efficiency, And Historical Tasks Is An Actual Or Potential Assassin.
Power
Historical
Tasks
To Lose One's Life Is No Great Matter; When The Time Comes I'll Have The Courage To Lose Mine. But What's Intolerable Is To See One's Life Being Drained Of Meaning, To Be Told There's No Reason For Existing. A Man Can't Live Without Some Reason For Living.
Men
Matter
Life Is
Everybody Knows Life Isn't Worth Living.
Knows
Worth Living
It Is Always Easy To Be Logical. It Is Almost Impossible To Be Logical To The Bitter End.
Impossible
Logic
Bitter
Ah Cher Ami, How Poor In Invention Men Are! They Are They Always Think One Commits Suicide For A Reason. But It's Quite Possible To Commit Suicide For Two Reasons. No, That Never Occurs To Them. So What's The Good Of Dying Intentionally, Of Sacrificing Yourself To The Idea You Want People To Have Of You? Once You Are Dead, They Will Take Advantage Of It To Attribute Idiotic Or Vulgar Motives To Your Action. Martyrs, Cher Ami, Must Choose Between Being Forgotten, Mocked, Or Made Use Of. As For Being Understood--never!
Suicide
Sacrifice
Thinking
Beginning To Think Is Beginning To Be Undermined. Society Has But Little Connection With Such Beginnings. The Worm Is In Man's Heart. That Is Where It Must Be Sought. One Must Follow And Understand This Fatal Game That Leads From Lucidity In The Face Of Existence To Flight From Light.
Heart
Men
Thinking
When One Has Extensively Pondered About Men, As A Career Or As A Vocation, One Sometimes Feels Nostalgic For Primates. At Least They Do Not Have Ulterior Motives.
Men
Careers
Sometimes
All I Maintain Is That On This Earth There Are Pestilences And There Are Victims, And It's Up To Us, So Far As Possible, Not To Join Forces With The Pestilences. That May Sound Simple To The Point Of Childishness; I Can't Judge If It's Simple, But I Know It's True.
Simple
Judging
Sound
The Only Way Out [of International Dictatorship] Is To Place International Law Above Governments, Which Means [...] That There Must Be A Parliament For Making It, And That Parliament Must Be Constituted By Means Of Worldwide Elections In Which All Nations Will Take Part.
Mean
Government
Law
But It's Not Easy. I've Been Thinking It Over For Years. While We Loved Each Other We Didn't Need Words To Make Ourselves Understood. But People Don't Love Forever. A Time Came When I Should Have Found The Words To Keep Her With Me, Only I Couldn't.
Thinking
Should Have
Years
…. Query: How Contrive Not To Waste One's Time? Answer: By Being Fully Aware Of It All The While. Ways In Which This Can Be Done: By Spending One's Days On An Uneasy Chair In A Dentist's Waiting-room; By Remaining On One's Balcony All Of A Sunday Afternoon; By Listening To Lectures In A Language On Doesn't Know; By Traveling By The Longest And Least-convenient Train Routes, And Of Course Standing All The Way; By Lining Up At The Box-office Of Theaters And Then Not Buying A Seat; And So Forth.
Sunday
Waiting Rooms
Office
... There Are Two Types Of Happiness And I Have Chosen That Of The Murderers. For I Am Happy. There Was A Time When I Thought I Had Reached The Limit Of Distress. Beyond That Limit, There Is A Sterile And Magnificent Happiness.
Happiness
Two
Suffering
I Was Tormented By My Desire For A Woman ... I Thought So Much About A Woman, About Women, About All The Ones I Had Known, About All The Circumstances In Which I Had Enjoyed Them, That My Cell Would Be Filled With Their Faces And Crowded With My Desires.
Cells
Desire
Would Be
In Our Society, Any Man Who Doesn't Cry At His Mother's Funeral Is Liable To Be Condemned To Death.
Mother
Men
Funeral
People Don't Love Each Other At Our Age, Marthe—they Please Each Other, That's All. Later On, When You're Old And Impotent, You Can Love Someone. At Our Age, You Just Think You Do. That's All It Is.
Love
Thinking
People
To Know Oneself, One Should Assert Oneself.
Motivational
Inspiring
Should
After All Manner Of Professors Have Done Their Best For Us, The Place We Are To Get Knowledge Is In Books. The True University Of These Days Is A Collection Of Books.
Teacher
Retirement
Book
People Hasten To Judge In Order Not To Be Judged Themselves.
Life
Order
People
As A Remedy To Life In Society I Would Suggest The Big City. Nowadays, It Is The Only Desert Within Our Means.
Life
Mean
Cities
I See Many People Die Because They Judge That Life Is Not Worth Living. I See Others Paradoxically Getting Killed For The Ideas Or Illusions That Give Them A Reason For Living (what Is Called A Reason For Living Is Also An Excellent Reason For Dying). I Therefore Conclude That The Meaning Of Life Is The Most Urgent Of Questions.
Ideas
People
Giving
A Loveless World Is A Dead World.
World
Loveless
Love Is The Kind Of Illness That Does Not Spare The Intelligent Or The Dull.
Love
Intelligent
Doe
The Spirit Of Rebellion Can Only Exist In A Society Where A Theoretical Equality Conceals Great Factual Inequalities. The Problem Of Rebellion, Therefore, Has No Meaning Except Within Our Own Western Society.
Spirit
Problem
Rebellion
Likewise, Every Time Somebody Interjects To Speak Of My Honesty There Is Someone Who Quivers Inside Me.
Honesty
Speak
Quiver
At The Age Of 40, Having Ordered Meat Very Rare In Restaurants All His Life, He Realized He Actually Liked It Medium And Not At All Rare.
Age
Meat
Restaurants
...we Rarely Confide In Those Who Are Better Than We. Rather, We Are More Inclined To Flee Their Society. Most Often, On The Other Hand, We Confess To Those Who Are Like Us And Who Share Our Weaknesses. Hence We Don't Want To Improve Ourselves And Be Bettered, For We Should First Have To Be Judged In Default. We Merely Wish To Be Pitied And Encouraged In The Course We Have Chosen. In Short, We Should Like, At The Same Time, To Cease Being Guilty And Yet Not To Make The Effort Of Cleansing Ourselves.
Hands
Effort
Wish
A Writer Cannot Put Himself Today In Service Of Those Who Make History; He Is At The Service Of Those Who Suffer It.
Writing
Suffering
Today
Trending Author
Ralph Chaplin
Tommy Lee
Bridget Moynahan
Bruno Schulz
Emir Kusturica
Nick Cave
Category
Information