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Philosopher

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Albert Camus

1913–1960 · Absurdism · Modern

Albert Camus refused the label of existentialist more than once, and he still belongs in the conversation. The Myth of Sisyphus asks how to live after the absurd, which he defines as a confrontation between the human need for meaning and the silence of the world. The essay opens on suicide and closes by asking the reader to imagine Sisyphus happy.

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The happiness is not a mood. It is the claim that the struggle itself can fill a heart. The Stranger is a novel. Meursault's indifference, gentle in Matthew Ward and benign in Stuart Gilbert, is not the essay's last line. The Plague is a chronicle of tending. The Rebel turns 'I rebel' into a 'we', and then attacks revolutions that betray the limit they began from.

Letters to a German Friend want a country and justice together. Name the translator: Justin O'Brien for the essay and the letters, Stuart Gilbert for The Plague, Anthony Bower for The Rebel, Ward or Gilbert for the novel, and do not mix their sentences. He is a moralist of limits. The posters keep the sun and lose the limit.

Start here

The Myth of Sisyphus, the opening and the closing, in O'Brien. Then the Rieux–Tarrou conversation in The Plague.

You see the problem and the image people detach from it, and then a novel in which decency has to be practised in a city.

Quotations

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

meaningdeathfreedom
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

resiliencemeaningself
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Meaning & application
“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

meaningresiliencehappiness
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Meaning & application
“The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

meaningknowledgemind
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Meaning & application
“There are more things to admire in people than to despise.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

ethicssocietyvirtue
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application
“I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

justiceethicssociety
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Meaning & application
“The only means of fighting a plague is common decency.”

Albert Camus · Absurdism

ethicsvirtuesociety
Paraphrase or translation
Meaning & application

Key ideas

  • The absurd

    Born of need meeting silence. Not a property of the world alone, and not a taste for drama.

  • Revolt

    I rebel, therefore we exist. A limit appears, and murder in history's name betrays it.

  • Lucidity

    Sisyphus is happy because he sees the rock, not because the rock was secretly meaningful.

  • Decency

    In The Plague, the fight is ordinary tending. Rieux is a character. The sense is the book's.

Major works

  • The Stranger (1942)

    A novel. Ward or Gilbert, and say which.

  • The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

    The essay. Justin O'Brien.

  • The Plague (1947)

    Stuart Gilbert. Rieux and the closing admiration.

  • The Rebel (1951)

    Anthony Bower. The break with a certain Sartre.

  • Letters to a German Friend (1943–1944)

    In Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. O'Brien.

Influences

Influenced

  • later moral essayists of limit

Common misreadings

  • The opening on suicide is not a recommendation. The essay spends itself refusing that conclusion.
  • Invincible summer is 'Return to Tipasa', not the myth. Do not paste it onto Sisyphus.
  • He kept refusing 'existentialist'. The refusal is a fact about him, not a reason to expel him from the argument.

Topic hubs

Famous lines Albert Camus never said

None of the lines this library files for Albert Camus is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

FAQ

What is the best book to start with?

The Myth of Sisyphus, the opening and the closing, in O'Brien. Then the Rieux–Tarrou conversation in The Plague. You see the problem and the image people detach from it, and then a novel in which decency has to be practised in a city.

What is the most famous quote?

This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Albert Camus that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” (The Myth of Sisyphus, opening, Paraphrase or translation).

What is the most misquoted line?

None of the lines this library files for Albert Camus is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.

What is one key idea, in a sentence?

The absurd: Born of need meeting silence. Not a property of the world alone, and not a taste for drama.