The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus
Quotes from book
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
Original title
Le Mythe de Sisyphe
(French, 1942)
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. The English translation by Justin O'Brien was first published in 1955.
“We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Absurd Man
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation
“Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation
“Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 18
“Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.”
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning, p. 170
“One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”
Kirilov
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Absurd Man
“The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 83
“Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus
Context: You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.
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
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation
Context: A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape. Likewise, a man's sole creation is strengthened in its successive and multiple aspects: his works. One after another they complement one another, correct or overtake one another, contradict one another, too. If something brings creation to an end, it is not the victorious and illusory cry of the blinded artist: "I have said everything," but the death of the creator which closes his experiences and the book of his genius.
That effort, that superhuman consciousness are not necessarily apparent to the reader. There is no mystery in human creation. Will performs this miracle. But at least there is no true creation without a secret. To be true, a succession of works can be but a series of approximations of the same thought. But it is possible to conceive of another type of creator proceeding by juxtaposition. Their words may seem to be devoid of inter-relations, to a certain degree, they are contradictory. But viewed all together, they resume their natural grouping.
“Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning
Context: 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. There is a universe of jealousy, of ambition, of selfishness or generosity. A universe — in other words a metaphysic and an attitude of mind.
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Absurd Man
Context: 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. It is ready to pay up. In other words, there may be responsible persons, but there are no guilty ones, in its opinion. At very most, such a mind will consent to use past experience as a basis for its future actions.
