What Albert Camus Actually Said About Death
All 4 Albert Camus passages on death, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Albert Camus returns to death four times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. French-Algerian novelist and philosopher of the absurd. The Myth of Sisyphus asks how to live well in a universe without inherent meaning.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is of its period, but the question underneath is not: what is death for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Albert Camus passage on death
“We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.”
“Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.”
“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”
“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Albert Camus is not offering four opinions about death; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
Albert Camus applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to Albert Camus.
You can choose the easier year or the harder, better one.
Argued as existential challenge: You are treating growth as a responsibility, not a mood. The risk is worshiping difficulty for its own sake.
You are good at something you no longer love.
Argued as self-overcoming: You are refusing to be owned by what once made you impressive. The danger is throwing away discipline because boredom feels profound.
Work through these yourself
- You can choose the easier year or the harder, better one. — argued from existential challenge and several competing positions
- You are good at something you no longer love. — argued from self-overcoming and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Bertrand Russell, Buddha, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche all address death too, and they do not converge. Reading Albert Camus alone gives you a coherent position; reading Albert Camus against Bertrand Russell shows you what the position is actually choosing against.