Albert Camus Absurdity Quotes & Sayings

The absurd is sin without God. — Albert Camus

Knowing whether or not man is free involves knowing whether he can have a master. The absurdity peculiar to this problem comes from the fact that the very notion that makes the problem of freedom possible also takes away all its meaning. For in the presence of God there is less a problem of freedom than a problem of evil. You know the alternative: either we are not free and God the all-powerful is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all powerful. All the scholastic subtleties have neither added anything to nor subtracted anything from the acuteness of this paradox. — Albert Camus

In whatsoever manner it be, let me turn to God and become fruitful in good works. Nothing higher exists than to approach God more than other people and from that to extend His glory among humanity.I will place all my confidence in your eternal goodness, O God! My soul shall rejoice in Thee, immutable Being. Be my rock, my light, forever my trust. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

The misery and greatness of this world: it offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it. — Albert Camus

What's your life philosophy, Leo?" "I haven't figured it out yet." Abbey considers this. "'I haven't figured it out yet' is not a bad life philosophy — Paul Acampora

Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful — Albert Camus

You may forget the toys you buy and break, but you'll always remember the experiences and memories you create. — Richie Norton

No human reality would therefore have been engendered if, thanks to a propensity that can be considered
fortunate for Hegel's system, there had not existed, from the beginning of time, two kinds of
consciousness, one of which has not the courage to renounce life and is therefore willing to recognize the
other kind of consciousness without being recognized itself in return. It consents, in short, to being
considered as an object. This type of consciousness, which, to preserve its animal existence, renounces
independent life, is the consciousness of a slave. The type of consciousness which by being recognized
achieves independence is that of the master. They are distinguished one from the other at the moment
when they clash and when one submits to the other. The dilemma at this stage is not to be free or to die,
but to kill or to enslave. This dilemma will resound throughout the course of history, though at this
moment its absurdity has not yet been resolved. — Albert Camus

Song is the licensed medium for bawling in public things too silly or sacred to be uttered in ordinary speech. — Oliver Herford

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. — Albert Camus

A step lower and strangeness creeps in: perceiving that the world is "dense", sensing to what a degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us. At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise. The primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millenia. — Albert Camus

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. — Albert Camus

Where is the absurdity of the world? Is it this resplendent glow or the memory of its absence? With so much sun in my memory, how could I have wagered on nonsense? People around me are amazed; so am I, at times. I could tell them, as I tell myself, that it was in fact the sun that helped me, and that the very thickness of its light coagulates the universe and its forms into a dazzling darkness. — Albert Camus

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity. — Albert Camus

You wouldn't know it by looking, but I had no teeth in first grade. — Kevin Jonas

In certain situations, replying "nothing" when asked what one is thinking about may be pretense in a man. Those who are loved are well aware of this. But if that reply is sincere, if it symbolizes that odd state of soul in which the void becomes eloquent, in which the chain of daily gestures is broken, in which the heart vainly seeks the link that will connect it again, then it is as it were the first sign of absurdity. — Albert Camus

The feeling of absurdity does not spring from the mere scrutiny of a fact or an impression, but that it bursts from the comparison between a bare fact and a certain reality, between an action and the world that transcends it. The absurd is essentially a divorce. It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation. — Albert Camus

The most ancient parts of truth ... also once were plastic. They also were called true for human reasons. They also mediated between still earlier truths and what in those days were novel observations. Purely objective truth, truth in whose establishment the function of giving human satisfaction in marrying previous parts of experience with newer parts played no role whatsoever, is nowhere to be found. The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true, for to be true means only to perform this marriage-function. — William James

Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my
revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of
consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation
to death - and I refuse suicide. — Albert Camus

Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy. Others would say it was the triumphant meaningful way he lived that allowed him to rise heroically above absurdity. — Aberjhani

This is still the age of grace. God's offer of forgiveness and a new life still stands. However, the door will one day be closed. Someday it will be too late. This is why the Bible continually warns and challenges: "Now is the accepted time" [2 Corinthians 6:2 NKJV]. — Billy Graham

I'm Here On This Planet to Use my Energy to love others, For what others are Here i don't know. — Jan Jansen

From the moment that man submits God to moral judgment, he kills Him in his own heart. And then what
is the basis of morality? God is denied in the name of justice, but can the idea of justice be understood
without the idea of God? At this point are we not in the realm of absurdity? Absurdity is the concept that
Nietzsche meets face to face. In order to be able to dismiss it, he pushes it to extremes: morality is the
ultimate aspect of God, which must be destroyed before reconstruction can begin. Then God no longer
exists and is no longer responsible for our existence; man must resolve to act, in order to exist. — Albert Camus

Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. — Albert Camus

The city of New Orleans showed America what it takes to rebuild a great place. We're all going together, and we're not leaving anybody behind. — Mitch Landrieu