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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.

-Albert Camus

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We Must Stitch Up

Albert Camus

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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.

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He Knew Now That It Was His Own Will To Happiness Which Must Make The Next Move. But If He Was To Do So, He Realized That He Must Come To Terms With Time, That To Have Time Was At Once The Most Magnificent And The Most Dangerous Of Experiments. Idleness Is Fatal Only To The Mediocre.

Madness Such As This, Its Like Trying To Stop A Fire With The Moisture From A Kiss

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

The Act Of Love Is A Confession.

Absolute Freedom Mocks At Justice. Absolute Justice Denies Freedom.

When The Body Is Sad, The Heart Languishes.

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.

In Fact, Other People Create For Lack Of Power. I, On The Other Hand, Do Not Need A Work: I Live.

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.

But What Does It Mean, The Plague? It's Life, That's All.

From The Evening Breeze To This Hand On My Shoulder, Everything Has Its Truth.

Those Who Write Clearly Have Readers.

Writers And Writing

In Our Wildest Aberrations We Dream Of An Equilibrium We Have Left Behind And Which We Naively Expect To Find At The End Of Our Errors. Childish Presumption Which Justifies The Fact That Child-nations, Inheriting Our Follies, Are Now Directing Our History.

Thus Each Of Us Had To Be Content To Live Only For The Day, Alone Under The Vast Indifference Of The Sky.

I Do Not Want To Found Anything On The Incomprehensible. I Want To Know Whether I Can Live With What I Know And With That Alone.

What Must Be Remembered In Any Case Is That Secret Complicity That Joins The Logical And The Everyday To The Tragic.

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

Life Continues, And Some Mornings, Weary Of The Noise, Discouraged By The Prospect Of The Interminable Work To Keep After, Sickened Also By The Madness Of The World That Leaps At You From The Newspaper, Finally Convinced That I Will Not Be Equal To It And That I Will Disappoint Everyone - All I Want To Do Is Sit Down And Wait For Evening. This Is What I Feel Like, And Sometimes I Yield To It.

One Of The Only Coherent Philosophical Positions Is Thus Revolt. It Is A Constant Confrontation Between Man And His Own Obscurity.

That Must Be Wonderful; I Have No Idea Of What It Means.

Those Who Love, Friends And Lovers, Know That Love Is Not Only A Blinding Flash, But Also A Long And Painful Struggle In The Darkness For The Realization Of Definitive Recognition And Reconciliation.

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.

An Achievement Is A Bondage. It Obliges One To A Higher Achievement.

Don't Let Them Tell Us Stories.

In Order To Exist Just Once In The World, It Is Necessary Never Again To Exist.

Don't Wait For The Last Judgment - It Takes Place Every Day.

Happiness Too Is Inevitable.

Outside Of That Single Fatality Of Death, Everything, Joy Or Happiness, Is Liberty.

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

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 Felt As I Hadn't Felt For Ages. I Had A Foolish Desire To Burst Into Tears. For The First Time I'd Realized How All These People Loathed Me.

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.

But When A Man Has Had Only Four Hours' Sleep He Isn't Sentimental. He Sees Things As They Are: That Is To Say, He Sees Them In The Garish Light Of Justice; Hideous, Witless Justice.

We Come Into The World Laden With The Weight Of An Infinite Necessity.

Poverty, First Of All Was Never A Misfortune For Me; It Was Radiant With Sunlight.. I Owe It To My Family, First Of All, Who Lacked Everything And Who Envied Practically Nothing.

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

Between History And The Eternal I Have Chosen History Because I Like Certainties. Of It, At Least, I Am Certain, And How Can I Deny This Force Crushing Me.

All Systems Of Morality Are Based On The Idea That An Action Has Consequences That Legitimize Or Cancel It. A Mind Imbued With The Absurd Merely Judges That Those Consequences Must Be Considered Calmly.

Actions Have Consequences

The Innocent Is The Person Who Explains Nothing

...any Authentic Creation Is A Gift To The Future.

There Is The Good And The Bad, The Great And The Low, The Just And The Unjust. I Swear To You That All That Will Never Change.

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?

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.

To Assert In Any Case That A Man Must Be Absolutely Cut Off From Society Because He Is Absolutely Evil Amounts To Saying That Society Is Absolutely Good, And No-one In His Right Mind Will Believe This Today.

Everybody Knows Life Isn't Worth Living.

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.

The Desire For Possession Is Insatiable, To Such A Point That It Can Survive Even Love Itself. To Love, Therefore, Is To Sterilize The Person One Loves.

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.

Note, Besides, That It Is No More Immoral To Directly Rob Citizens Than To Slip Indirect Taxes Into The Price Of Goods That They Cannot Do Without.

The Myth Of Unlimited Production Brings War In Its Train As Inevitably As Clouds Announce A Storm.

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.

No Human Being, Even The Most Passionately Loved And Passionately Loving, Is Ever In Our Possession.

We [writers] Must Know That We Can Never Escape The Common Misery And That Our Only Justification, If Indeed There Is A Justification, Is To Speak Up, Insofar As We Can, For Those Who Cannot Do So.

[love] Is The Type Of Disease That Spares Neither The Intelligent Nor The Idiotic.

Absurd- That Is The Light Mind That Establishes Its Own Borders.

In Order To Understand The World, One Has To Turn Away From It On Occasion; In Order To Serve Others Better, One Has To Hold Them At A Distance For A Time. But Where Can One Find The Solitude Necessary To Vigor, The Deep Breath In Which The Mind Collects Itself And Courage Gauges Its Strength? There Remain Big Cities.

Against Eternal Injustice, Man Must Assert Justice, And To Protest Against The Universe Of Grief, He Must Create Happiness.

All Great Deeds And All Great Thoughts Have A Ridiculous Beginning.

Does The End Justify The Means? That Is Possible. But What Will Justify The End? To That Question, Which Historical Thought Leaves Pending, Rebellion Replies: The Means.

The Society Of Merchants Can Be Defined As A Society In Which Things Disappear In Favor Of Signs. When A Ruling Class Measures Its Fortunes, Not By The Acre Of Land Or The Ingot Of Gold, But By The Number Of Figures Corresponding Ideally To A Certain Number Of Exchange Operations, It Thereby Condemns Itself To Setting A Certain Kind Of Humbug At The Center Of Its Experience And Its Universe. A Society Founded On Signs Is, In Its Essence, An Artificial Society In Which Man's Carnal Truth Is Handled As Something Artificial.

Whereas The Greeks Gave To Will The Boundaries Of Reason, We Have Come To Put The Will's Impulse In The Very Center Of Reason, Which Has, As A Result, Become Deadly.

I Don't Want To Be A Genius-i Have Enough Problems Just Trying To Be A Man.

Am Well. Thinking Of You Always. Love

Thinking Of You

There Can Be No True Goodness, Nor True Love, Without The Utmost Clear-sightedness.

Great Ideas, It Has Been Said, Come Into The World As Gently As Doves. Perhaps Then, If We Listen Attentively, We Shall Hear Amid The Uproar Of Empires And Nations, A Faint Flutter Of Wings, The Gentle Stirring Of Life And Hope. Some Will Say That This Hope Lies In A Nation; Others In A Man. I Believe Rather That It Is Awakened, Revived, Nourished, By Millions Of Solitary Individuals Whose And Works Every Day Negate Frontiers And The Crudest Implications Of History.

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

When The Imagination Sleeps, Words Are Emptied Of Their Meaning: A Deaf Population Absent-mindedly Registers The Condemnation Of A Man. ... There Is No Other Solution But To Speak Out And Show The Obscenity Hidden Under The Verbal Cloak.

Although It Was The Middle Of Winter, I Finally Realized That, Within Me, Summer Was Inextinguishable.

It Is Easier To Kill What We Do Not Know.

Fiction Is The Lie Through Which We Tell The Truth.

Telling The Truth

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.

I Leave Sisyphus At The Foot Of The Mountain. One Always Finds One's Burden Again. But Sisyphus Teaches The Higher Fidelity That Negates The Gods And Raises Rocks. He Too Concludes That All Is Well. This Universe Henceforth Without A Master Seems To Him Neither Sterile Nor Futile. Each Atom Of That Stone, Each Mineral Flake Of That Night-filled Mountain, In Itself, Forms A World. The Struggle Itself Toward The Heights Is Enough To Fill A Man's Heart. One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy.

La Ve Rite , Comme La Lumie' Re, Aveugle. Le Mensonge, Au Contraire, Est Un Beau Cre Puscule Qui Met Chaque Objet En Valeur. Truth, Like Light, Blinds. A Lie, On The Contrary, Is A Beautiful Twilight Which Shows The Value Of Each Object.

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

When One Has No Character, One Has To Apply A Method. Here It Did Wonders Incontrovertibly, And I Am Living On The Site Of One Of The Greatest Crimes In Human History.

The Need To Be Right Is The Sign Of A Vulgar Mind.

There Is No Love Of Life Without Despair Of Life.

To Understand One's World, One Must Sometimes Turn Away From It! To Serve Better, One Must Briefly Hold It At A Distance. Where Can The Necessary Solitude Be Found, The Long Breathing Space In Which Mind Gathers Its Strength And Takes Stock Of Its Courage.

Breathing Space

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.

He Seemed So Certain About Everything, Didn't He? And Yet None Of His Certainties Was Worth One Hair Of A Woman's Head. He Wasn't Even Sure He Was Alive, Because He Was Living Like A Dead Man.

To Begin With, Poor People´s Memory Is Less Nourished Than That Of A Rich; It Has Fewer Landmarks In Space Because They Seldom Leave The Place Where They Live, And Fewer Reference Points In Time Throughtout Lives That Are Grey And Featureless.

And Often He Who Has Chosen The Fate Of The Artist Because He Felt Himself To Be Different Soon Realizes That He Can Maintain Neither His Art Nor His Difference Unless He Admits That He Is Like The Others. The Artist Forges Himself To The Others, Midway Between The Beauty He Cannot Do Without And The Community He Cannot Tear Himself Away From.

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

I Have Always Felt I Lived On The High Seas, Threatened, At The Heart Of A Royal Happiness.

False Judges Are Held Up In The World's Admiration And I Alone Know The True Ones.

The Urge To Revolt Is One Of The Essential Dimensions Of Human Nature.

Chacun Exige D'e" Tre Innocent, A' Tout Prix, Me" Me Si, Pour Cela, Il Faut Accuser Le Genre Humain Et Le Ciel. Everyone Insists On His Or Her Innocence, At All Costs, Even If It Means Accusing The Rest Of The Human Race And Heaven.

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.

There Can Be No Question Of Holding Forth On Ethics. I Have Seen People Behave Badly With Great Morality And I Note Every Day That Integrity Has No Need Of Rules

History, As An Entirety, Could Only Exist In The Eyes Of An Observer Outside It And Outside The World. History Only Exists, In The Final Analysis, For God.

There Is Always A Philosophy For Lack Of Courage.

Methods Of Thought Which Claim To Give The Lead To Our World In The Name Of Revolution Have Become, In Reality, Ideologies Of Consent And Not Of Rebellion.

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.

The Danger Of Lectures Is That They Create The Illusion Of Teaching For Teachers, And The Illusion Of Learning For Learners.

Judging Whether Life Is Or Is Not Worth Living Amounts To Answering The Fundamental Question Of Philosophy.

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.

Life Is A Sum Of All Your Choices". So, What Are You Doing Today?

Decisions You Make

There Are Always Reasons For Murdering A Man. But There Is No Justification For His Existence.

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.

Creating Is Living Doubly. The Groping, Anxious Quest Of A Proust, His Meticulous Collecting Of Flowers, Of Wallpapers, And Of Anxieties, Signifies Nothing Else.

There Are More Things To Admire In Men Than To Despise.

... Habit Starts At The Second Crime. At The First One, Something Is Ending.

There Are Some Individuals Who Have Too Strong A Craving, A Will, And A Nostalgia For Happiness Ever To Reach It. They Always Retain A Bitter And Passionate Aftertaste, And That's The Best They Can Hope For.

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

Maman Used To Say That You Can Always Find Something To Be Happy About. In My Prison, When The Sky Turned Red And A New Day Slipped Into My Cell, I Found Out That She Was Right.

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

Always Go Too Far, Because That's Where You'll Find The Truth

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.)

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.

Rebellion, In Man, Is The Refusal To Be Treated As An Object And To Be Reduced To Simple Historical Terms. It Is The Affirmation Of A Nature Common To All Men, Which Eludes The World Of Power.

Healthy People Have A Natural Skill Of Avoiding Feverish Eyes.

Politics And The Fate Of Mankind Are Formed By Men Without Ideals And Without Greatness. Those Who Have Greatness Within Them Do Not Go In For Politics.

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

Nobody Realizes That Some People Expend Tremendous Energy Merely To Be Normal.

To Be Famous, In Fact, One Has Only To Kill One's Landlady.

... It Is True That I Do Not Respect [human Life] More Than I Respect My Own Life. And If It Is Easy For Me To Kill, That Is Because It Is Difficult For Me To Die.

No Ends, Simply Means.

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

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

...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.

Don't Walk Behind Me; I May Not Lead. Don't Walk In Front Of Me; I May Not Follow. Just Walk Beside Me And Be My Friend.

To Be Born To Create, To Love, To Win At Games Is To Be Born To Live In Time Of Peace. But War Teaches Us To Lose Everything And Become What We Were Not. It All Becomes A Question Of Style.

The Primordial Sea Indefatigably Repeats The Same Words And Casts Up The Same Astonished Beings On The Same Sea-shore.

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

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

To Write Is To Become Disinterested. There Is A Certain Renunciation In Art.

Thoughts Of Suicide Have Got Me Through Many A Bad Night.

Europe Has Lived On Its Contradictions, Flourished On Its Differences, And, Constantly Transcending Itself Thereby, Has Created A Civilization On Which The Whole World Depends Even When Rejecting It. This Is Why I Do Not Believe In A Europe Unified Under The Weight Of An Ideology Or Of A Technocracy That Overlooked These Differences.

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

On Certain Mornings, As We Turn A Corner, An Exquisite Dew Falls On Our Heart And Then Vanishes. But The Freshness Lingers, And This, Always, Is What The Heart Needs. The Earth Must Have Risen In Just Such A Light The Morning The World Was Born.

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

A Writer Cannot Put Himself Today In Service Of Those Who Make History; He Is At The Service Of Those Who Suffer It.

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.

Violence Is Both Unavoidable And Unjustifiable.

...the Habit Of Despair Is Worse Than Despair Itself.

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

All Men Have A Sweetness In Their Life. That Is What Helps Them Go On. It Is Towards That They Turn When They Feel Too Worn Out.

It's A Kind Of Spiritual Snobbery That Makes People Think They Can Be Happy Without Money.

He Had Opened His Heart To The Sublime Indifference Of The Universe

You Always Get Exaggerated Notions Of Things You Don't Know Anything About.

And Real Nobility (that Of The Heart) Is Based On Scorn, Courage, And Profound Indifference.

Psychology Is Action, Not Thinking About Oneself.

We're Going Forward, But Nothing Changes.

The Greatness Of Man Lies In His Decision To Be Stronger Than His Condition.

Heroism Is Accessible. Happiness Is More Difficult.

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.

I Realized Then That A Man Who Had Lived Only One Day Could Easily Live For A Hundred Years In Prison. He Would Have Enough Memories To Keep Him From Being Bored

The Workman Of Today Works Every Day In His Life At The Same Tasks, And This Fate Is No Less Absurd. But It Is Tragic Only At The Rare Moments When It Becomes Conscious.

Thinking Of The Future, Establishing Aims For Oneself, Having Preferences-all This Presupposes A Belief In Freedom, Even If One Occasionally Ascertains That One Doesn't Feel It.

In The Vast Reaches Of The Dry, Cold Night, Thousands Of Stars Were Constantly Appearing, And Their Sparkling Icicles, Loosened At Once, Began To Slip Gradually Toward The Horizon.

The World In Which We Were Called To Exist Was An Absurd World, And There Was No Other In Which We Could Take Refuge.

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.

And Never Have I Felt So Deeply At One And The Same Time So Detached From Myself And So Present In The World.

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.

The End Of Their Passion Consists Of Loving Uselessly At The Moment When It Is Pointless.

Happiness And Love

Nature Is A Burning And Frigid, Transparent And Limited Universe In Which Nothing Is Possible But Everything Is Given.

Yes, And When The Love Of Life Disappears, No Meaning Can Console Us.

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.

It Is Better For The Intellectual Not To Talk All The Time. To Begin With, It Would Exhaust Him, And, Above All, It Would Keep Him From Thinking. He Must Create If He Can, First And Foremost, Especially If His Creation Does Not Side-step The Problems Of His Time.

What Is Called A Reason For Living Is Also An Excellent Reason For Dying.

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.

Liberty Is Dangerous.

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

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.

Stupidity Has A Knack Of Getting Its Way.

Powerful, Yes, That Is The Word That I Constantly Rolled On My Tongue, I Dreamed Of Absolute Power, The Kind That Forces Others Tokneel, That Forces The Enemy To Capitulate, Finally Converting Him, And The More The Enemy Is Blind, Cruel, Sure Of Himself, Buried In His Conviction, The More His Admission Proclaims The Royalty Of He Who Has Brought On His Defeat.

On Good Days, If You Trust Life, Life Has To Answer You.

Independence Is Earned By A Few Words Of Cheap Confidence

... One Cannot Be Happy In Exile Or In Oblivion. One Cannot Always Be A Stranger. I Want To Return To My Homeland, Make All My Loved Ones Happy. I See No Further Than This.

Why Should It Be Essential To Love Rarely In Order To Love Much?

There Exists An Obvious Fact That Seems Utterly Moral: Namely, That A Man Is Always Prey To His Truths. Once He Has Admitted Them, He Cannot Free Himself From Them. One Has To Pay Something. A Man Who Has Become Conscious Of The Absurd Is Forever Bound To It.

If Nietzsche Is Correct, That To Shame A Man Is To Kill Him, Then Any Honest Attempt At Autobiography Will Be An Act Of Self-destruction.

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

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

A Living Man Can Be Enslaved And Reduced To The Historic Condition Of An Object. But If He Dies In Refusing To Be Enslaved, He Reaffirms The Existence Of Another Kind Of Human Nature Which Refuses To Be Classified As An Object.

How Hard It Is, How Bitter It Is To Become A Man!

What Really Counted Was The Possibility Of Escape, A Leap To Freedom, Out Of The Implacable Ritual, A Wild Run For It That Would Give Whatever Chance For Hope There Was. Of Course, Hope Meant Being Cut Down On Some Street Corner, As You Ran Like Mad, By A Random Bullet. But When I Really Thought It Through, Nothing Was Going To Allow Me Such A Luxury. Everything Was Against It; I Would Just Be Caught Up In The Machinery Again.

Freedom Is The Right To Never Have To Lie.

Purely Historical Thought Is Therefore Nihilistic: It Wholeheartedly Accepts The Evil Of History And In This Way Is Opposed To Rebellion.

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.

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

If We Believe In Nothing, If Nothing Has Any Meaning And If We Can Affirm No Values Whatsoever, Then Everything Is Possible And Nothing Has Any Importance.

I Used To Advertise My Loyalty And I Don't Believe There Is A Single Person I Loved That I Didn't Eventually Betray.

Our Reason Has Driven All Away. Alone At Last, We End Up Ruling Over A Desert.

Those Who Weep For The Happy Periods Which They Encounter In History Acknowledge What They Want; Not The Alleviation But The Silencing Of Misery.

The Slave And Those Whose Present Life Is Miserable And Who Can Find No Consolation In The Heavens Are Assured That At Least The Future Belongs To Them. The Future Is The Only Kind Of Property That The Masters Willingly Concede To The Slaves.

From The Moment Absurdity Is Recognized, It Becomes A Passion, The Most Harrowing Of All. But Whether Or Not One Can Live With One's Passions, Whether Or Not One Can Accept Their Law, Which Is To Burn The Heart They Simultaneously Exalt - That Is The Whole Question.

From Paul To Stalin, The Popes Who Have Chosen Caesar Have Prepared The Way For Caesars Who Quickly Learn To Despise Popes.

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

Happiness Is Generous. It Does Not Subsist On Destruction.

Everybody Knows That Pestilences Have A Way Of Recurring In The World; Yet Somehow We Find It Hard To Believe In Ones That Crash Down On Our Heads From A Blue Sky.

The Most Loathsome Materialism Is Not The Kind People Usually Think Of, But The Sort That Attempts To Let Dead Ideas Pass For Living Realities, Diverting Into Sterile Myths The Stubborn And Lucid Attention We Give To What We Have Within Us That Must Forever Die.

There Is A Metaphysical Honour In Ending The World's Absurdity. Conquest Or Play-acting, Multiple Loves, Absurd Revolt Are Tributes That Man Pays To His Dignity In A Campaign In Which He Is Defeated In Advance.... War Cannot Be Negated. One Must Live It Or Die Of It. So It Is With The Absurd: It Is A Question Of Breathing With It, Of Recognizing Its Lessons And Recovering Their Flesh. In This Regard The Absurd Joy Par Excellence Is Creation. "art And Nothing But Art", Said Nietzsche, "we Have Art In Order Not To Die Of The Truth."

Men Die And They Are Not Happy.

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.

If One Could Only Say Just Once: 'this Is Clear', All Would Be Saved

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

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

Men Cry Because Things Are Not What They Ought To Be.

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