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Notebooks 1935-1942

Book by Albert Camus · 7 quotes · Philosophy, Solitude, Absurd

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Notebooks 1935-1942 Quotes

“I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness. To go right to the end implies knowing how to keep one's secret. And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown. My deepest joy is to write. To accept the world and to accept pleasure—but only when I am stripped bare of everything. I should not be worthy to love the bare and empty beaches if I could not remain naked in the presence of myself. For the first time I can understand the meaning of the word happiness without any ambiguity. It is a little different from what men normally mean when they say: 'i am happy.”

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Book:Notebooks 1935-1942
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“February 13, 1936 I ask of people more than they can give me. It is useless to maintain the contrary. But what a mistake and what despair. And myself perhaps... Seek contacts. All contacts. If I want to write about men, should I stop talking about the countryside? If the sky or light attract me, shall I forget the eyes or voices of those I love? Each time I am given the elements of a friendship, the fragments of an emotion, never the emotion or the friendship itself.”

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Book:Notebooks 1935-1942
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“Moment of adorable silence. Men fall silent. But the song of the world rises and I, a prisoner chained deep in the cave, am filled with delight before I have time to desire. Eternity is here and I was hoping for it. Now I can speak. I do not know what I could wish for rather than this continued presence of self with self. What I want now is not happiness but awareness. One thinks one has cut oneself off from the world, but it is enough to see an olive tree upright in the golden dust, or beaches glistening in the morning sun, to feel this separation melt away. Thus with me. I become aware of the possibilities for which I am responsible. Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.”

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Book:Notebooks 1935-1942
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“Every time a man (myself) gives way to vanity, every time he thinks and lives in order to show off, this is a betrayal. Every time, it has always been the great misfortune of wanting to show off which has lessened me in the presence of the truth. We do not need to reveal ourselves to others, but only to those we love. For then we are no longer revealing ourselves in order to seem but in order to give. There is much more strength in a man who reveals himself only when it is necessary. I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness. To go right to the end implies knowing how to keep one’s secret. And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown.”

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Book:Notebooks 1935-1942
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“Le Faust à l'envers. L'homme jeune demande au diable les biens de ce monde. Le diable (qui a un costume sport et déclare volontiers que le cynisme est la grande tentation de l'intelligence) lui dit avec douceur : « Mais les biens de ce monde, tu les as. C'est à Dieu qu'il faut demander ce qui te manque - si tu crois que quelque chose te manque. Tu feras marché avec Dieu et, pour les biens de l'autre monde, tu lui vendras ton corps. » Après un silence, le diable qui allume une cigarette anglaise ajoute : « Et ce sera ta punition éternelle. »”

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Book:Notebooks 1935-1942
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