“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.”

Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind’s desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.

To be spiritual is to be amazed.

I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.

The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.

Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind.

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.

Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.

It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind.

Man’s sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.

Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society.

Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person’s qualities but on trust.

There is no answer to Auschwitz…To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair

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.