5 Phrases By Albert Camus That Will Change The Way You See Life
Nobel Prize writer Albert Camus stands out above all for his way of seeing life. In his books he leaves clear samples of the evolution of the characters according to their personality, where each of us can see ourselves reflected.
Albert Camus is recognized for his humanistic literature. Influenced by the philosophy of F. Nietzsche, he places special emphasis on the absurdity of the human condition, striving to bring awareness and perspective through his literary works.
Albert Camus and his existentialist thinking
The presence of existentialism in the thought of Albert Camus is very marked in all his literary work. In his best known works such as “The Stranger”, “The Plague”, “The Myth of Sisyphus”, etc., the author reveals his deepest concerns, with a reflective and lucid thought about human existence.
He speaks to us in his works essentially of the spiritual crisis of our time, within the framework of the religious, political and artistic manifestation. Offering us with his philosophical ideas, new dimensions about how we can live the issues that concern all of us.
In his sentences we can see what his great reflections and concerns were. Camus leaves us a literary legacy so that we dare to see ourselves, with our miseries, hobbies, virtues, deceptions and capacities. In this selection of phrases we analyze some of the most characteristic.
The real misfortune is not loving
In this phrase the strength and fullness that the act of loving supposes is revealed. A sample for those who have lived an unrequited love, that what they have felt is worth it in spite of everything, no matter how much pain it is experienced, no matter how sad it appears.
In the very act of loving we can see ourselves, with that ability to admire another being with all its beauty, through a look that goes beyond the rational. This feeling even being frustrated, who has lived it will know that, above all, it is preferable to have felt it. Being something so valuable that it is generated in our being with no other intention than to love.
Freedom should be for everyone
A phrase with a humanistic essence, in which he declares that freedom cannot exist, as long as there is a man in this world who continues without it. Obtaining our freedom as a result of other people losing theirs is an inhuman act.
Camus thus vindicates compassion and solidarity so that every human being achieves the same rights. Thus putting themselves against the fact that there are a few who obtain these rights at the cost of being taken from others.
We cannot love, without loving each other first
Many philosophers and great thinkers show us this idea, in which it is not possible to love without first having loved oneself. Part of the sense, that we can only give what we have, love is no exception ; It is undeniable that this feeling is the result of what we are capable of giving.
If you are capable of cultivating your own love, of providing care and attention, at that moment you will be creating the necessary conditions to be able to share that feeling, from what you are and from the honest love that you have conceived.
Hope resides deep within us
All hope resides in us, in our attitude and the perspective that we are capable of adopting in each moment. When we consider who we are through our achievements and what we have, we are putting our value outside of ourselves.
It is easy and foreseeable that this type of so superficial value is ephemeral and that sooner or later it is liable to be destroyed. When we put the value in who we are, accepting our difficulties and fears, we thus learn to count on ourselves in the face of any disappointment and frustrated matter.
True generosity
We know that everything we are part of a present moment and that accumulation of moments is what makes up our future. We sow every moment so that the experience sprouts and that is how we obtain our learnings.
Giving everything to the present consists of doing what we could at that moment, with respect to what we want. This is how we build our destiny, focusing on each situation trying to give the best of ourselves. What we are currently experiencing is a consequence of what we have learned and the attitude we take to each of our experiences.
Which of these Albert Camus phrases would you choose? All of them contain a very valuable teaching that we need to internalize. Today we usually complain and settle into victimhood more than we should. What if we start to do the opposite and see our present with hopeful eyes?
