“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
The quote "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine …" is famous quote by Albert Camus (1913–1960), French author and journalist.
Original French: La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.
Variant translation: The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man; it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus
Context: 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.
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Albert Camus 209
French author and journalist 1913–1960Related quotes
Note to the mother of Marcus Chown, who had admired the profile of Feynman presented in the BBC TV Horizon program "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981). Written after Chown asked Feynman to write her a birthday note, hoping it would increase her interest in science.
Photo of note published in No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman (1996), by Christopher Sykes, p. 161.
In a " Quantum theory via 40-tonne trucks http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/quantum-theory-via-40tonne-trucks-how-science-writing-became-popular-1866934.html", The Independent (17 January 2010), and in a audio interview on BBC 4 (September 2010), Chown recalled the note as: "Ignore your son's attempts to teach you physics. Physics is not the most important thing, love is."
Source: "New Year Address to the Nation" http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67514 (31 December 2021)
L'amour abstrait ne suffit pas à un homme pauvre et grand, il en veut tous les dévouements... La véritable épouse en cœur, en chair et en os, se laisse traîner là où va celui en qui réside sa vie, sa force, sa gloire, son bonheur.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
“Why count the days, when even one days is enough for a man to know all happiness?”
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
“For what imaginable purpose was man made, if not to be "happy"?”
Pt. I, Bk. II, ch. 1.
1830s, The French Revolution. A History (1837)
Context: For what imaginable purpose was man made, if not to be "happy"? By victorious Analysis, and Progress of the Species, happiness enough now awaits him. Kings can become philosophers; or else philosophers Kings. Let but Society be once rightly constituted,—by victorious Analysis. The stomach that is empty shall be filled; the throat that is dry shall be wetted with wine. Labour itself shall be all one as rest; not grievous, but joyous Wheat-fields, one would think, cannot come to grow untilled; no man made clayey, or made weary thereby;—unless indeed machinery will do it? Gratuitous Tailors and Restaurateurs may start up, at fit intervals, one as yet sees not how. But if each will, according to rule of Benevolence, have a care for all, then surely—no one will be uncared for. Nay, who knows but by sufficiently victorious Analysis, "human life may be indefinitely lengthened," and men get rid of Death, as they have already done of the Devil? We shall then be happy in spite of Death and the Devil.
