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Sisyphus Quotes

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Sisyphus Quotes

“Was [Sisyphus] from your province? 'I don't know. I don't know if he's real,' Ky says. 'If he ever existed.' 'Then why tell his story?' I don't understand, and for a second I feel betrayed. Why did Ky tell me about this person and make me feel empathy for him when there's no proof that he ever lived at all? Ky pauses for a moment before he answers, ...'Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway.”

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Book:Matched
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“Feeling confronted with the absurdity of life may sometimes nurture a personal satisfaction for those who like to set a paramount task or to create a compassionate mission. In so doing, the seal of absurdity becomes less unbearable, while it confers them a ‘Sisyphus’ status that transmutes them into heroes of human resilience. (“Sisyphus on the hill.)”

ResilienceHeroesAbsurdityParamountTaskSisyphusPersonal SatisfactionCompassionate Action
Author:Erik Pevernagie
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“I didn't know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It's a chore, on the contrary, and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner's box before the judges, and alone to decide in the face of oneself or in the face of others' judgement. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that's why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”

FreedomExistenceMindsetExistentialismSisyphus
Book:The fall
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“I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task." "What does that mean?" he heard Daisy ask. Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus's. "It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task... rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top." "Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..." "The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh. "Do continue with our instruction, my lady," Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus left the room. "We'll try not to flatten you on the way down.”

Greek MythologyHahaSisyphusLillian BowmanDaisy BowmanBowman Sisters
Book:It Happened One Autumn
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“The story of Sisyphus is no different from what we have to go through every day of our lives. We wake up, toil during the day, come home eventide and rest only to begin toiling again the next day. The only difference is that we are mere mortals and one day, we will die. Death excuses us from our daily toils unlike Sisyphus who has to toil till eternity.”

DeathEternityMortalsDieSisyphusToilingDays Of Our Lives
Book:Unforgettable: Living a Life That Matters
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“Sisyphus is dangerous, mother.” Persephone said as the Oneiroi lifted into the air and circled about them again. She reached out toward the circle of flames and pulled their destination closer. The walled citadel of Ephyra appeared before them in the widening pathway through the ether. The Queen of the Underworld took a step toward it and looked at her mother one last time. “But so am I.”

PowerGoddessPersephoneHades And PersephoneSisyphus
Book:Destroyer of Light
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“I can negate everything of that part of me that lives on vague nostalgias, except this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion. I can refute everything in this world surrounding me that offends or enraptures me, except this chaos, this sovereign chance and this divine equivalence which springs from anarchy. I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”

QuotesExistentialAlbert CamusThe Myth Of SisyphusSisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
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“God is Sisyphus, and existence (life) is the stone. The accomplishment of purpose is the saddest point. Sisyphus is happiest without the total accomplishment of the purpose, while he persistently works and aims at the top. The accomplishment of the purpose is Sisyphus’ fall, so he forgets his achievement quickly. Voyage contains his whole hope and beauty; the voyage is the purpose of the stone—purpose to itself alone. He always arrives in the same place but chooses voyage instead of the target. The purpose and target were always there. Voyage is always new because it is fed from oblivion by unaware memory, with infinite possibilities stemming from the nature of the absolute through “free” will and unincidental accidents or errors. Voyage is the ultimate goal or purpose because it hides an infinite multitude within itself; the infinity of the finite through endless possibilities. The beauty of infinity is always new; the voyage is the sum of happenings on the scale. Every experience or adventure is new. Beauty shines from experience.”

GodTimeUniverseSpaceEternityCosmosDejan StojanovicAbsoluteNowSisyphus
Book:ABSOLUTE
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“Time will prolong time, and life will serve life. In this field that is both limited and bulging with possibilities, everything to himself, except his lucidity, seems unforeseeable to him. What rule, then, could emanate from that unreasonable order? The only truth that might seem instructive to him is not formal: it comes to life and unfolds in men. The absurd mind cannot so much expect ethical rules at the end of its reasoning as, rather, illustrations and the breath of human lives.”

MenMindHumansEndsSeemsMightOrderFieldsPossibilityBreathsAbsurdHuman LifeReasoningEthicalFormalUnreasonableIllustrationEmanateLife And TimeLuciditySisyphusMyth Of Sisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
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“Society is a long series of uprising ridges, which from the first to the last offer no valley of repose. Whenever you take your stand, you are looked down upon by those above you, and reviled and pelted by those below you. Every creature you see is a farthing Sisyphus, pushing his little stone up some Liliputian mole-hill. This is our world.”

WorldFirstsLittlesLongLastsSocietyOffersCreaturesStonesSeriesHillsPushingOur WorldValleysReposeUprisingMolesRidgesSisyphus
Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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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.”

TryingHandsStrongSadnessFeetSadStonesWeightRoseDustHillsSweatTormentLimbsMonstrousBrowsPouringGraspingOver The TopShamelessSisyphusHands And Feet
Book:The Odyssey of Homer: Several Versions
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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.”

MenWorldWellsHeartEnoughSeemsFormNightUniverseTeachStruggleImagineFeetRocksMastersHigherMountainStonesRaisesFilledBurdenHeightAtomsFidelityMineralsFlakesSisyphusMyth Of Sisyphus
Author:Albert Camus
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“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”

WorldMindFirstsPhilosophyProblemLife IsThreeGamesAnswersSeriousJudgingAmountPhilosophicalFundamentalsSuicideNineDimensionsCategoriesTwelveSuicidalWorth LivingSisyphusMyth Of SisyphusThree Dimensions
Author:Albert Camus
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“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”

PeopleGivingIdeasReasonLife IsDiesDyingJudgingIllusionExcellentMeaning Of LifeThriveUrgentWorth LivingSisyphusLife Is Not Worth LivingMyth Of Sisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
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“What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me - that I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?”

KnowsWorldHumansMeanI CanTwoLyingTermPrinciplesConditionsThis WorldLimitsAbsolutesUnityRationalCertaintyReasonableAppetiteImpossibilityReducingReconcileSisyphusMyth Of Sisyphus
Author:Albert Camus
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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.”

IfsLifeInspirationalHappinessLife IsPurposeSpiritualityExistenceInspirational LifePhilosophicalHappyUnhappyThis LifeLive LifeMeaning Of LifeExistentialismUnhappinessHappy LifeBeing HappyVery HappyBad AssSoul SearchingDiscontentMeaningful LifeFinding HappinessGreat HappinessLife HappinessJust LiveJoy And HappinessMeaning LifeLife MeansI Live My LifeJust Be HappyJoy HappinessTrue MeaningLife And HappinessHappiness And SuccessWhat Is LifeSelf HappinessLive Life HappySecret To HappinessLife Well LivedWhat Is HappinessSisyphusTruly HappyLooking For HappinessSearching For HappinessLiving Life WellMake Others HappyWhat Is The Meaning Of LifeLive Life Happy InspirationalLive HappyBeing Happy With LifeSuccess HappinessWhat Is The MeaningMetaphors Of LifePhases Of LifeSpiritual HappinessTrue Meaning Of LifeWhat Is The Purpose Of LifeLive Your Life HappyHappy Love Life
Author:Albert Camus
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