Source: Harvest of Stars
The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense
Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)
“For he who reckons it a pleasure that a man, though justly condemned, should be slain in his sight, pollutes his conscience as much as if he should become a spectator and a sharer of a homicide which is secretly committed.”
Nam qui hominem, quamuis ob merita damnatum, in conspectu suo iugulari pro uoluptate computat, conscientiam suam polluit, tam scilicet, quam si homicidii, quod fit occulte, spectator et particeps fiat.
Book VI, Chap. XX
The Divine Institutes (c. 303–13)
“The sole purpose of man on earth is to manifest his Creator. He has no other purpose.”
Source: A New Concept of the Universe (1953), p. 139
Introduction : The absurdity of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (1961)
Context:  "Absurd" originally means "out of harmony," in a musical context. Hence its dictionary definition: "out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical." In common usage, "absurd" may simply mean "ridiculous," but this is not the sense in which Camus uses the word, and in which it is used when we speak of the Theatre of the Absurd. In an essay on Kafka, Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as follows: "Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose.... Cut from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless."
"The Solution" ["Die Lösung"] (c. 1953), as translated in Brecht on Brecht : An Improvisation (1967) by George Tabori, p. 17
Variant translation:
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had flyers distributed in Stalin Way that said
That the People had frivolously
Thrown away the Government's Confidence
And that they could only regain it
Through Redoubled Work. But wouldn't it be
Simpler if the Government
Simply dissolved the People
And elected another?
Ch 10
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875)
Context: Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy — "as happy as a king" — is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
