46 quotes
French philosopher, author, and journalist (1913–1960)
“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.”
"But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself."
on Courage
"Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place."
on Learning
"From the moment that man submits God to moral judgment, he kills Him his own heart."
on Faith
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."
on Philosophy
"They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences."
on Freedom
"Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else's blood. This is why our thinkers feel free to say just about anything."
on Corruption
"We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them."
on Inspirational
"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
on Ethics
"Actual freedom has not increased in proportion to man's awareness of it."
"Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable."
on Happiness
"What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed."
on Life
"When a man has learned how to remain alone with his suffering, how to overcome his longing to flee, then he has little left to learn."
on Resilience
"It is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering of being cannot be, it is life."
"Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?"
"Their pleasures are fierce and their sleep impenetrable. And they know that the body has a soul in which the soul has no part."
"People can think only in images. If you want to be a philosopher, write novels."
on Creativity
"In the world there is, parallel to the force of death and constraint, an enormous force of persuasion that is called culture."
on Culture
"If pimps and thieves were invariably sentenced, all decent people would get to thinking they themselves were constantly innocent."
on Truth
"You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question."
on Wisdom
"Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it."
on Hope
