“This may be the vocation of man: to say “Amen” to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.”

The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions.

To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time

The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature.

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.

To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.

Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.

Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man’s power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated.

To sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.

The absurdity of that assertion would be self-evident, but in our case we make an exception.

Wit is a pleasure-giving thing, largely because it eludes reason; but in the apprehension of an absurdity through the working of the comic spirit there is a foundation of reason, and an impetus to human companionship.

People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization.

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It’s a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power…Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.

Some have speculated that the way [Albert] Camus died made his theories on absurdity a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And I knew that it was better to live out one’s absurdity than to die for that of others.