Q0090

Albert Camus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
Thinker Albert Camus
School Philosophy of the Absurd
Source The Myth of Sisyphus
Theme Meaning
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Myth of Sisyphus, within the tradition of Philosophy of the Absurd. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of meaning, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Albert Camus's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Albert Camus. (n.d.). There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0090

MLA: Albert Camus. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem,….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0090.

Chicago: Albert Camus. “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem,….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0090.

Same thinker

More from Albert Camus

  1. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
  2. I rebel — therefore we exist.
  3. There are more things to admire in men than to despise.
  4. Rebellion cannot do without the notion of a limit — it stops at human dignity.
  5. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

All quotations by Albert Camus

Same theme

More on meaning

  1. Virtue is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us.
  2. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
  3. Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'.
  4. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions are answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.
  5. The meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Browse the meaning theme