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One Dies If Necessary, One Breaks Rather Than Bending. But I Bend, Because I Continue To Love Myself.

-Albert Camus

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One Dies If Necessary,

Albert Camus

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One Dies If Necessary, One Breaks Rather Than Bending. But I Bend, Because I Continue To Love Myself.

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I Grew Up With The Sea, And Poverty For Me Was Sumptuous; Then I Lost The Sea And Found All Luxuries Gray And Poverty Unbearable.

You Know, A Man Always Judges Himself By The Balance He Can Strike Between The Needs Of His Body And The Demands Of His Mind. You're Judging Yourself Now, Mersaut, And You Don't Like The Sentence.

Judging Yourself

There Are People Who Vindicate The World, Who Help Others Live Just By Their Presence.

After All, Every Murderer When He Kills Runs The Risk Of The Most Dreadful Of Deaths, Whereas Those Who Kill Him Risk Nothing Except Promotion.

In Our Society, Any Man Who Doesn't Cry At His Mother's Funeral Is Liable To Be Condemned To Death.

Have You No Hope At All? And Do You Really Live With The Thought That When You Die, You Die, And Nothing Remains?" "yes," I Said.

It's Not Your Pictures I Like; It's Your Painting.

We Have To Live And Let Live In Order To Create What We Are.

Live And Let Live

I Felt The Urge To Reassure Him That I Was Like Everybody Else, Just Like Everybody Else.

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.

Since We're All Going To Die, It's Obvious That When And How Don't Matter.

Like Great Works, Deep Feelings Always Mean More Than They Are Conscious Of Saying.

My Life Was Lucky So That I Met, I Loved (and Disappointed) Only Outstanding People.

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.

A Stranger To Myself And To The World, Armed Solely With A Thought That Negates Itself As Soon As It Asserts, What Is This Condition In Which I Can Have Peace Only By Refusing To Know And To Live, In Which The Appetite For Conquest Bumps Into Walls That Defy Its Assaults?

If We Understood The Enigmas Of Life There Would Be No Need For Art.

There Are Places Where The Mind Dies So That A Truth Which Is Its Very Denial May Be Born.

To Create Today Is To Create Dangerously. Any Publication Is An Act, And That Act Exposes One To The Passions Of An Age That Forgives Nothing.

A Sub-clerk In The Post-office Is The Equal Of A Conqueror If Consciousness Is Common To Them.

To Abandon Oneself To Principles Is Really To Die - And To Die For An Impossible Love Which Is The Contrary Of Love.

When A War Breaks Out, People Say: "it's Too Stupid; It Can't Last Long." But Though A War May Well Be "too Stupid," That Doesn't Prevent Its Lasting. Stupidity Has A Knack Of Getting Its Way; As We Should See If We Were Not Always So Much Wrapped Up In Ourselves.

In Oran, As Elsewhere, For Want Of Time And Thought, People Have To Love One Another Without Knowing It.

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.

But Who Would Dare Condemn Me In This World With No Judges, Where No One Is Innocent!

They Hurt Each Other Without Wanting To, Just Because Each Represented To The Others The Cruel And Demanding Necessity Of Their Lives.

The Rebel Can Never Find Peace. He Knows What Is Good And, Despite Himself, Does Evil. The Value Which Supports Him Is Never Given To Him Once And For All - He Must Fight To Uphold It, Unceasingly.

Happiness Implied A Choice, And Within That Choice A Concerted Will, A Lucid Desire.

…there's No Question Of Heroism In All This. It's A Matter Of Common Decency. That's An Idea Which May Make Some People Smile, But The Only Means Of Fighting A Plague Is - Common Decency.

Thus I Draw From The Absurd Three Consequences, Which Are My Revolt, My Freedom, And My Passion. By The Mere Activity Of Consciousness I Transform Into A Rule Of Life What Was An Invitation To Death—and I Refuse Suicide.

Freedom Is Not A Reward Or A Decoration That Is Celebrated With Champagne...oh No! It's A...long Distance Race, Quite Solitary And Very Exhausting.

Old Women Even Forget How To Love Their Sons. The Heart Gets Worn Out, Monsieur.

Great Feelings Take With Them Their Own Universe, Splendid Or Abject. They Light Up With Their Passion An Exclusive World In Which They Recognize Their Climate.

Thus, I Always Began By Assuming The Worst; My Appeal Was Dismissed. That Meant, Of Course, I Was To Die. Sooner Than Others, Obviously. 'but,' I Reminded Myself, 'it's Common Knowledge That Life Isn't Worth Living, Anyhow.' And, On A Wide View, I Could See That It Makes Little Difference Whether One Dies At The Age Of Thirty Or Threescore And Ten-- Since, In Either Case, Other Men Will Continue Living, The World Will Go On As Before. Also, Whether I Died Now Or Forty Years Hence, This Business Of Dying Had To Be Got Through, Inevitably.

A Man Is More A Man Through The Things He Keeps To Himself Than Through Those He Says.

Germany Collapsed As A Result Of Having Engaged In A Struggle For Empire With The Concepts Of Provincial Politics.

On The Ridge Where The Great Artist Moves Forward, Every Step Is An Adventure, An Extreme Risk. In That Risk, However, And Only There, Lays The Freedom Of Art.

Love Is The Kind Of Illness That Does Not Spare The Intelligent Or The Dull.

In The Light, The Earth Remains Our First And Our Last Love. Our Brothers Are Breathing Under The Same Sky As We; Justice Is A Living Thing. Now Is Born That Strange Joy Which Helps One Live And Die, And Which We Shall Never Again Postpone To A Later Time.

One Dies If Necessary, One Breaks Rather Than Bending. But I Bend, Because I Continue To Love Myself.

The More I Accuse Myself, The More Right I Have To Judge You. Even Better, I Make You Judge Yourself, Which Comforts Me The More.

Forever I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself. In Psychology As In Logic, There Are Truths But No Truth.

Believe Me, The Hardest Thing For A Man To Give Up Is That Which He Really Doesn't Want, After All.

No One Who Lives In The Sunlight Of Gratitude That Things Aren't Worse Makes A Failure Of His Or Her Life.

Martyrs, My Friend, Have To Choose Between Being Forgotten, Mocked Or Used. As For Being Understood - Never.

In Order To Understand The World, One Has To Turn Away From It On Occasion.

I Am Too Far Away From What I Love And My Distance Is Without Remedy.

The Real Passion Of The Twentieth Century Is Servitude.

Everything Is True, And Nothing Is True!

Integrity Needs No Rules.

When I Was Young, I Expected From People More Than They Could Give: Neverending Friendship And Constant Excitement. Now I Expect Less Than They Can Actually Can Give: To Stay Close Silently. And Their Feelings, Friendship, Noble Deeds Always Seem Like A Miracle To Me: A True Grace.

The First Concern Of Any Dictatorship Is, Consequently, To Subjugate Both Labor And Culture.

Man Stands Face To Face With The Irrational. He Feels Within Him His Longing For Happiness And For Reason. The Absurd Is Born Of This Confrontation Between The Human Need And The Unreasonable Silence Of The World.

Life Is A Story And God Is Author.life Is Absurd.i Think So.

For Those Of Us Who Have Been Thrown Into Hell, Mysterious Melodies And The Torturing Images Of A Vanished Beauty Will Always Bring Us, In The Midst Of Crime And Folly, The Echo Of That Harmonious Insurrection Which Bears Witness, Throughout The Centuries, To The Greatness Of Humanity.

At A Certain Level Of Suffering Or Injustice No One Can Do Anything For Anyone. Pain Is Solitary.

After All, I Do Not Have So Many Ways Of Proving That I Am Free. We Is Always Free At The Expense Of Someone Else. It Is A Bother,but It Is Normal.

We Continue To Shape Our Personality All Our Life. If We Knew Ourselves Perfectly, We Should Die.

Can One Be A Saint If God Does Not Exist? That Is The Only Concrete Problem I Know Of Today.

An Intellectual? Yes. And Never Deny It. An Intellectual Is Someone Whose Mind Watches Itself. I Like This, Because I Am Happy To Be Both Halves, The Watcher And The Watched. "can They Be Brought Together?" This Is A Practical Question. We Must Get Down To It. "i Despise Intelligence" Really Means: "i Cannot Bear My Doubts.

The Byronic Hero, Incapable Of Love, Or Capable Only Of An Impossible Love, Suffers Endlessly. He Is Solitary, Languid, His Condition Exhausts Him. If He Wants To Feel Alive, It Must Be In The Terrible Exaltation Of A Brief And Destructive Action.

Whoever Today Speaks Of Human Existence In Terms Of Power, Efficiency, And Historical Tasks Is An Actual Or Potential Assassin.

There Was The Same Dazzling Red Glare. The Sea Gasped For Air With Each Shallow, Stifled Wave That Broke On The Sand. ...with Every Blade Of Light That Flashed Off The Sand, From A Bleached Shell Or A Peice Of Broken Glass, My Jaws Tightened. I Walked For A Long Time.

The Main Thing Is That Everything Become Simple, Easy Enough For A Child To Understand.

The Struggle To Reach The Top Is Itself Enough To Fulfill The Heart Of Man. One Must Believe That Sisyphus Is Happy.

If Pimps And Thieves Everywhere Were Always Punished, Honest People Would All Believe Themselves Always To Be Innocent.

The Slave Begins By Demanding Justice And Ends By Wanting To Wear A Crown.

Here Lives A Free Man. Nobody Serves Him.

There Is No More Futile Punishment Than Futile And Hopeless Labor.

We Don't Have The Time To Completely Be Ourselves. We Only Have The Room To Be Happy.

Any Country Where I Am Not Bored Is A Country That Teaches Me Nothing.

Sometimes, Carrying On, Just Carrying On, Is The Superhuman Achievement.

By Definition, A Government Has No Conscience. Sometimes It Has A Policy, But Nothing More.

Then We Understand That Rebellion Cannot Exist Without A Strange Form Of Love. Those Who Find No Rest In God Or In History Are Condemned To Live For Those Who, Like Themselves, Cannot Live; In Fact, For The Humiliated.

Once One's Up Against It, The Precise Manner Of One's Death Has Obviously Small Importance.

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.

A Man Without Ethics Is A Wild Beast Loosed Upon This World.

For Who Would Dare To Assert That Eternal Happiness Can Compensate For A Single Moment's Human Suffering

Eternal Happiness

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.

As A Remedy To Life In Society I Would Suggest The Big City. Nowadays, It Is The Only Desert Within Our Means.

Once Crime Was As Solitary As A Cry Of Protest; Now It Is As Universal As Science. Yesterday It Was Put On Trial; Today It Determines The Law.

Absolute Justice Is Achieved By The Suppression Of All Contradiction, Therefore It Destroys Freedom.

There Is No Sun Without Shadow, And It Is Essential To Know The Night.

All I Know Of Morality I Learned From Football

There Is No Longer A Single Idea Explaining Everything, But An Infinite Number Of Essences Giving A Meaning To An Infinite Number Of Objects. The World Comes To A Stop, But Also Lights Up.

I Have No Friends, I Only Have Accomplices Now. On The Other Hand, My Accomplices Are More Numerous Than My Friends: They Are The Human Race.

Freedom Is Nothing But A Chance To Be Better.

Peace Is The Only Battle Worth Waging.

In That Daily Effort In Which Intelligence And Passion Mingle And Delight Each Other, The Absurd Man Discovers A Discipline That Will Make Up The Greatest Of His Strengths. The Required Diligence And Doggedness And Lucidity Thus Resemble The Conqueror's Attitude. To Create Is Likewise To Give A Shape To One's Fate. For All These Characters, Their Work Defines Them At Least As Much As It Is Defined By Them. The Actor Taught Us This: There Is No Frontier Between Being And Appearing.

On My Way Out I Was Even Going To Shake His Hand, But I Remembered Just In Time That I'd Killed A Man.

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?

Accept Life, Take It As It Is? Stupid. The Means Of Doing Otherwise? Far From Our Having To Take It, It Is Life That Possesses Us And On Occasion Shuts Our Mouths.

Independence Is Earned By A Few Words Of Cheap Confidence

I Was Absent At The Moment I Took Up The Most Space.

The Absurd Is Lucid Reason Noting Its Limits.

A Nihilist Is Not One Who Believes In Nothing , But One Who Does Not Believe In What Exists.

In Fact, It Comes To This: Nobody Is Capable Of Really Thinking About Anyone, Even In The Worst Calamity. For Really To Think About Someone Means Thinking About That Person Every Minute Of The Day, Without Letting One’s Thoughts Be Diverted By Anything- By Meals, By A Fly That Settles On One’s Cheek, By Household Duties, Or By A Sudden Itch Somewhere. But There Are Always Flies And Itches. That’s Why Life Is Difficult To Live.

Somebody Has To Have The Last Word. If Not, Every Argument Could Be Opposed By Another And We'd Never Be Done With It.

This Very Heart Which Is Mine Will Forever Remain Indefinable To Me. Between The Certainty I Have Of My Existence And The Content I Try To Give To That Assurance, The Gap Will Never Be Filled. Forever I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself.

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.

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.

Integrity Has No Need Of Rules.

One Grows Out Of Pity When It's Useless.

Truth, Like Light Is Dazzling. By Contrast, Untruth Is A Beautiful Sunset That Enhances Everything.

It Is Not The World That Is Absurd, Nor Human Thought: The Absurd Arises When The Human Need To Understand Meets The Unreasonableness Of The World, When 'my Appetite For The Absolute And For Unity' Meets 'the Impossibility Of Reducing This World To A Rational And Reasonable Principle.'

At The Heart Of All Beauty Lies Something Inhuman, And These Hills, The Softness Of The Sky, The Outline Of These Trees At This Very Minute Lose The Illusory Meaning With Which We Had Clothed Them, Henceforth More Remote Than A Lost Paradise . . . That Denseness And That Strangeness Of The World Is Absurd.

You Must Have A Love, A Great Love, To Ensure An Alibi At Unjustified Despairs That Conquer All Of Us

It Happens That The Stage Sets Collapse. Rising, Streetcar, Four Hours In The Office Or The Factory, Meal, Streetcar, Four Hours Of Work, Meal, Sleep, And Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday And Saturday According To The Same Rhythm – This Path Is Easily Followed Most Of The Time. But One Day The “why” Arises And Everything Begins In That Weariness Tinged With Amazement.

I Was Comfortable In All, I Admit, But At The Same Time, Nothing Satisfied Me. Each Joy Made Me Seek Another.

Freedom Is Not A Gift Received From The State Or Leader, But A Possession To Be Won Every Day By The Effort Of Each And The Union Of All.

The Absurd Is Essentially A Divorce. It Lies In Neither Of The Elements Compared; It Is Born Of Their Confrontation.

The Absurd Is The Essential Concept And The First Truth.

In The Past, The Poverty They Shared Had A Certain Sweetness About It. When The End Of The Day Came And They Would Eat Their Dinner In Silence With The Oil Lamp Between Them, There Was A Secret Joy In Such Simplicity, Such Retrenchment.

If Absolute Truth Belongs To Anyone In This World, It Certainly Does Not Belong To The Man Or Party That Claims To Possess It.

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.

History Only Exists, In The Final Analysis, For God.

If The World Were Clear, Art Would Not Exist.

The Absurd Has Meaning Only In So Far As It Is Not Agreed To.

There Are Means That Cannot Be Excused. And I Should Like To Be Able To Love My Country And Still Love Justice. I Don't Want Just Any Greatness For It, Particularly A Greatness Born Of Blood And Falsehood. I Want To Keep It Alive By Keeping Justice Alive.

Do Not Be Surprised. I Do Not Like Writers And I Cannot Stand Their Lies. They Speak So As Not To Listen To Themselves Speak. If They Did Listen, They Would Know That They Are Nothing And Then They Would No Longer Be Able To Speak.

Don't Lies Eventually Lead To The Truth? And Don't All My Stories, True Or False, Tend Toward The Same Conclusion? Don't They All Have The Same Meaning? So What Does It Matter Whether They Are True Or False If, In Both Cases, They Are Significant Of What I Have Been And What I Am? Sometimes It Is Easier To See Clearly Into The Liar Than Into The Man Who Tells The Truth. Truth, Like Light, Blinds. Falsehood, On The Contrary, Is A Beautiful Twilight That Enhances Every Object.

In A World That Has Ceased To Believe In Sin, The Artist Is Responsible For The Preaching.

But In Order To Speak About All And To All, One Has To Speak Of What All Know And Of The Reality Common To Us All. The Seas, Rains, Necessity, Desire, The Struggle Against Death--these Are Things That Unite Us All. We Resemble One Another In What We See Together, In What We Suffer Together. Dreams Change From Individual, But The Reality Of The World Is Common To Us All. Striving Towards Realism Is Therefore Legitimate, For It Is Basically Related To The Artistic Adventure.

Those Who Write Clearly Have Readers.

Writers And Writing

The Principles Which Men Give To Themselves End By Overwhelming Their Noblest Intentions.

This Absurd, Godless World Is, Then, Peopled With Men Who Think Clearly And Have Ceased To Hope. And I Have Not Yet Spoken Of The Most Absurd Character, Who Is The Creator.

And It Was Like Knocking Four Quick Times On The Door Of Unhappiness.

The Laws Of Nature May Be Operative Up To A Certain Limit, Beyond Which They Turn Against Themselves To Give Birth To The Absurd.

There's The Risk Of Being Loved...and That Would Keep Me From Being Happy.

One Recognizes One's Course By Discovering The Paths That Stray From It.

In A Universe Suddenly Divested Of Illusion And Lights, Man Feels An Alien, A Stranger. His Exile Is Without Remedy Since He Is Deprived Of The Memory Of A Lost Home Or The Hope Of A Promised Land.

I Do Not Believe In God And I Am Not An Atheist.

Fancy Language, Like Poplin, Too Often Conceals An Eczema.

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.

Truth, Like Light, Is Blinding. Lies, On The Other Hand, Are A Beautiful Dusk, Which Enhances The Value Of Each Object.

You Have To Be Very Rich Or Very Poor To Live Without A Trade.

Utopia Is That Which Is In Contradiction With Reality.

What Is A Rebel? A Man Who Says No.

You Know, [women] Do Not Really Condemn Any Weakness: Rather, They Try To Humiliate Or Disarm Our Strengths. That Is Why Women Arethe Reward, Not Of The Warrior, But Of The Criminal.

We [raymond And Meursault] Stared At Each Other Without Blinking, And Everything Came To A Stop There Between The Sea, The Sand, And The Sun, And The Double Silence Of The Flute And The Water. It Was Then That I Realized That You Could Either Shoot Or Not Shoot.

Every Ideology Is Contrary To Human Psychology.

Mostly, I Could Tell, I Made Him Feel Uncomfortable. He Didn't Understand Me, And He Was Sort Of Holding It Against Me. I Felt The Urge To Reassure Him That I Was Like Everybody Else, Just Like Everybody Else. But Really There Wasn't Much Point, And I Gave Up The Idea Out Of Laziness.

I Do Not Have Much Liking For The Too Famous Existential Philosophy, And, To Tell The Truth, I Think Its Conclusions False.

Telling The Truth

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.

If You Keep On Excusing, You Eventually Give Your Blessing To The Slave Camp, To Cowardly Force, To Organized Executioners, To The Cynicism Of Great Political Monsters; You Finally Hand Over Your Brothers.

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.

I Felt As Though I Was Partly Unlearning What I Had Never Learned And Yet Knew So Well: I Mean, How To Live.

I Do Not Want To Believe That Death Is The Gateway To Another Life. For Me, It Is A Closed Door. I Do Not Say It Is A Step We Must All Take, But That It Is A Horrible And Dirty Adventure.

Every Artist Preserves Deep Within Him A Single Source From Which, Throughout His Lifetime, He Draws What He Is, And What He Says. When The Source Dries Up, The Work Withers And Crumbles.

Some People Talk In Their Sleep. Lecturers Talk While Other People Sleep.

Whoever Gives Nothing, Has Nothing. The Greatest Misfortune Is Not To Be Unloved, But Not To Love.

I Looked Up At The Mass Of Signs And Stars In The Night Sky And Laid Myself Open For The First Time To The Benign Indifference Of The World.

Every Minute Of Life Carries With It Its Miraculous Value, And Its Face Of Eternal Youth.

To Lose The Touch Of Flowers And Women's Hands Is The Supreme Separation.

There May Be Responsible Persons, But There Are No Guilty Ones.

More And More, When Faced With The World Of Men, The Only Reaction Is One Of Individualism. Man Alone Is An End Unto Himself. Everything One Tries To Do For The Common Good Ends In Failure.

I Felt That I Had Been Happy And That I Was Happy Again. For Everything To Be Consummated, For Me To Feel Less Alone, I Had Only To Wish That There Be A Large Crowd Of Spectators The Day Of My Execution And That They Greet Me With Cries Of Hate.

... I Suppose That It Is Not So Easy To Go Home And It Takes A Bit Of Time To Make A Son Out Of A Stranger.

But All The Long Speeches, All The Interminable Days And Hours That People Had Spent Talking About My Soul, Had Left Me With The Impression Of A Colorless Swirling River That Was Making Me Dizzy.

A True Masterpiece Does Not Tell Everything.

The Struggle Itself Towards The Heights Is Enough To Fill A Man's Heart. One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy.

But - I Cannot Make A Choice. I Have My Own Sorrow, But I Suffer With Him, Too; I Share His Pain. I Understand All - That Is My Trouble.

The First Choice An Artist Makes Is Precisely To Be An Artist, And If He Chooses To Be An Artist It Is In Consideration Of What He Is Himself And Because Of A Certain Idea He Has Of Art

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.

No Code Of Ethics And No Effort Are Justifiable A Priori In The Face Of The Cruel Mathematics That Command Our Condition.

I Would Rather Not Have Upset Him, But I Couldn't See Any Reason To Change My Life. Looking Back On It, I Wasn't Unhappy. When I Was A Student, I Had Lots Of Ambitions Like That. But When I Had To Give Up My Studies I Learned Very Quickly That None Of It Really Mattered.

If The Only Significant History Of Human Thought Were To Be Written, It Would Have To Be The History Of Its Successive Regrets And Its Impotences.

Myth Of Sisyphus

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.

Greatness Consists In Trying To Be Great. There Is No Other Way.

Whatever Prevents You From Doing Your Work Has Become Your Work.

They Knew Now That If There Is One Thing One Can Always Yearn For, And Sometimes Attain, It Is Human Love.

All That Remains Is A Fate Whose Outcome Alone Is Fatal. Outside Of That Single Fatality Of Death, Everything, Joy Or Happiness, Is Liberty. A World Remains Of Which Man Is The Sole Master. What Bound Him Was The Illusion Of Another World. The Outcome Of His Thought, Ceasing To Be Renunciatory, Flowers In Images. It Frolics---in Myths, To Be Sure, But Myths With No Other Depth Than That Of Human Suffering And, Like It, Inexhaustible. Not The Divine Fable That Amuses And Blinds, But The Terrestrial Face, Gesture, And Drama In Which Are Summed Up A Difficult Wisdom And An Ephemeral Passion.

Because,' Cormery Went On, 'when I Was Very Young, Very Foolish, And Very Much Alone ... You Paid Attention To Me And, Without Seeming To, You Opened For Me The Door To Everything I Love In The World.

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.

How Hard It Must Be To Live Only With What One Knows And What One Remembers, Cut Off From What One Hopes For!

I Had Only A Little Time Left And I Didn't Want To Waste It On God.

There Is No Frontier Between Being And Appearing.

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.

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.

Believe Me There Is No Such Thing As Great Suffering, Great Regret, Great Memory....everything Is Forgotten, Even A Great Love. That's What's Sad About Life, And Also What's Wonderful About It. There Is Only A Way Of Looking At Things, A Way That Comes To You Every Once In A While. That's Why It's Good To Have Had Love In Your Life After All, To Have Had An Unhappy Passion- It Gives You An Alibi For The Vague Despairs We All Suffer From.

Still, Obviously, One Can't Be Sensible All The Time.

... 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.

It Is Not Your Paintings I Like, It Is Your Painting.

Give Up The Tyranny Of Female Charm.

There Is No Fate That Cannot Be Surmounted By Scorn.

There Are Plagues, And There Are Victims, And It's The Duty Of Good Men Not To Join Forces With The Plagues.

The Absurd Is A Shadow Cast Over Everything We Do And Even If We Try To Live Life As If It Has Meaning As If There Are Reasons For Doing Things The Absurd Will Linger In The Back Of Our Minds As A Nagging Doubt That Perhaps There Is No Point.

Virtue Cannot Separate Itself From Reality Without Becoming A Principle Of Evil.

But What Is Happiness Except The Simple Harmony Between A Man And The Life He Leads?

Real Generosity Toward The Future Lies In Giving All To The Present.

Ce Que Je Sais De La Morale, C'est Au Football Que Je Le Dois. (i Know Of Morality, It Is Football That I Owe.)

Lying Is Not Only Saying What Isn't True. It Is Also, In Fact Especially, Saying More Than Is True And, In The Case Of The Human Heart, Saying More Than One Feels. We All Do It, Every Day, To Make Life Simpler.

Don't Believe Your Friends When They Ask You To Be Honest With Them. All They Really Want Is To Be Maintained In The Good Opinion They Have Of Themselves.

Life Is Meaningless, But Worth Living, Provided You Recognize It's Meaningless.

All Great Deeds And All Great Thoughts Have A Ridiculous Beginning. Great Works Are Often Born On A Street Corner Or In A Restaurant's Revolving Door.

The Struggle To The Top Alone Will Make A Human Heart Swell.

For What Gives Value To Travel Is Fear. It Breaks Down A Kind Of Inner Structure We Have. Travel Robs Us Of Such Refuge. Far From Our Own People, Our Own Language, Stripped Of All Our Props, Deprived Of Our Masks (one Doesn't Know The Fare On The Streetcars, Or Anything Else), We Are Completely On The Surface Of Ourselves.

We're Going Forward, But Nothing Changes.

Every Man Needs Slaves Like He Needs Clean Air. To Rule Is To Breathe, Is It Not? And Even The Most Disenfranchised Get To Breathe. The Lowest On The Social Scale Have Their Spouses Or Their Children.

What On Earth Prompted You To Take A Hand In This?" "i Don't Know. My… My Code Of Morals, Perhaps." "your Code Of Morals. What Code, If I May Ask?" "comprehension.

You Will Never Be Able To Experience Everything. So, Please, Do Poetical Justice To Your Soul And Simply Experience Yourself.

Experience Yourself

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