The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Context: I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me — that I understand. And these two certainties — my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle — I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions? <!-- 175
“Something is trying to come into the world. But I don’t know what it is. I never start by knowing. It's impossible to know. Truth is not knowledge.”
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Bram van Velde 97
Dutch painter 1895–1981Related quotes
““There’s something you should know about me.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know, but you should know it.””
Source: Down and Out in Purgatory (2016), p. 100
Source: Sam Harris, Big Think Sam Harris On Death http://bigthink.com/ideas/3127 (July 4, 2007)
Context: We just don’t teach people how to grieve. You know, religion is the epitome, the antithesis of teaching your children how to grieve. You tell your child that, “Grandma is in heaven”, and there’s nothing to be sad about. That’s religion. It would be better to equip your child for the reality of this life, which is, you know, we... death is a fact. And we don’t know what happens after death. And I’m not pretending to know that you get a dial tone after death. I don’t know what happens after the physical brain dies. I don’t know what the relationship between consciousness and the physical world is. I don’t think anyone does know. Now I think there are many reasons to be doubtful of naïve conceptions about the soul, and about this idea that you could just migrate to a better place after death. But I simply don’t know about what... I don’t know what I believe about death. And I don’t think it’s necessary to know in order to live as sanely and ethically and happily as possible. I don’t think you get... You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know.
The Masque of Balliol http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2735.html (1880)
Interview with Jian Gomeshi, CBC Radio Q (16 February 2011) http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/QTV_on_bol...2/ID=1886977325/.
On how envisioning an ending allows him to conclude each character’s journey in “Extended interview: Colson Whitehead on writing ‘The Nickel Boys’" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/extended-interview-colson-whitehead-on-writing-the-nickel-boys/ in CBS News (2019 Jul 14)
Ólafur talking to Vegmey
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland