Sisyphus Quotes

• One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

  Albert Camus

  Struggle, Imagine, Flakes

  Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942)

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• Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Eye, Rocks, Self

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• Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Tasks, Cleaning, Endless

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• The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

  Albert Camus

  Struggle, Heart, Hard Times

  Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942)

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• The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

  Albert Camus

  Fall, Punishment, Rocks

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.119, Vintage

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• None of us would choose to be Sisyphus; yet in a sense, we all are.

  Joko Beck

  "Nothing Special". Book by Charlotte J. Beck, ‎Steven A. Smith, 2009.

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• 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.

  Albert Camus

  Struggle, Heart, Night

  Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942)

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• 'Yea and I beheld Sisyphus in strong torment, grasping a monstrous stone with both his hands. He was pressing thereat with hands and feet, and trying to roll the stone upward toward the brow of the hill. But oft as he was about to hurl it over the top, the weight would drive him back, so once again to the plain rolled the stone, the shameless thing. And he once more kept heaving and straining, and the sweat the while was pouring down his limbs, and the dust rose upwards from his head.

  Homer

  Sad, Strong, Dust

  Homer “The Odyssey of Homer: Several Versions”, Library of Alexandria

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• Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Lying, Sleep, Dust

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  Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

  Albert Camus

  Funny, Positivity, Bad Ass

  Albert Camus (1965). “Notebooks, 1942-1951”

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• Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

  Albert Camus

  Love, Friendship, Happy

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• All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.

  Albert Camus

  Creativity, New Beginnings, Bad Ass

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.12, Vintage

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• Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Life, Waiting

  La Chute (The Fall) (1956)

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• I would join Sisyphus in Hades and gladly push my boulder up the slope if only, each time it rolled back down, I were given a line of Aeschylus.

  Tom Stoppard

  Boulders, Lines, Given

  Tom Stoppard (1998). “The Invention of Love”, p.27, Grove Press

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• Either you pursue or push, O Sisyphus, the stone destined to keep rolling.
  [Lat., Aut petis aut urgues ruiturum, Sisyphe, saxum.]

  Ovid

  Rolling, Stones, Action

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• There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

  Albert Camus

  Change, Fate, Destiny

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.121, Vintage

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• There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.

  Albert Camus

  Light, Essence, Ideas

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.45, Vintage

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• You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Life, Happiness

  "Youthful Writings". Book by Albert Camus, October 1932.

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• It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.

  Aristotle

  Men, Desire, Satisfied

  Aristotle (2016). “Politics”, p.58, Aristotle

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• Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?

  Albert Camus

  Succeed, Steps, Torture

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.121, Vintage

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• To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Years, Two

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.62, Vintage

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• If you tell your troubles to God, you put them into the grave; they will never rise again when you have committed them to Him. If you roll your burden anywhere else, it will roll back again like the stone of Sisyphus.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Stones, Trouble, Burden

  Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1892). “Brilliants: selected from the works of C.H. Spurgeon”

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• This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.

  Albert Camus

  Divorce, Men, Absurdity Of Life

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.6, Vintage

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• Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

  Albert Camus

  Mean, Feelings, Existential

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.10, Vintage

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• At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Feelings, Faces

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.10, Vintage

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