Albert Camus Quotes on Death
Camus's Myth of Sisyphus opens with the claim that the only serious philosophical question is whether life — given its certain end and the silent indifference of the universe — is worth living. The systematic analysis of suicide as a response to the absurd structures the essay: neither philosophical nor existential suicide is the proper response, since both evade the absurd rather than living it. The Plague extends the analysis to the collective confrontation with mortality through the figure of Dr. Rieux, whose ordinary decency is presented as the form of revolt that does not require metaphysical consolation.
Quotes
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Attributed to Albert Camus:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
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“Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to society ," but: "They are going to cut off his head." It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference. And then there are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye .”
Entre oui et non" in L'Envers et l'endroit (1937), translated as "Between Yes and No", in World Review magazine (March 1950), also quoted in The Artist and Political Vision (1982) by Benjamin R. Barber and Michael J. Gargas McGrath -
“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)”
Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage. -
“Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.”
"The Sea Close By" in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970) -
“Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.”
Absurd Creation