Q0275

Albert Camus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Thinker Albert Camus
School Philosophy of the Absurd
Source The Myth of Sisyphus
Theme Philosophy
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 philosophy, 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.). One must imagine Sisyphus happy. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0275

MLA: Albert Camus. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0275.

Chicago: Albert Camus. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0275.

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. There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
  3. I rebel — therefore we exist.
  4. There are more things to admire in men than to despise.
  5. Rebellion cannot do without the notion of a limit — it stops at human dignity.

All quotations by Albert Camus

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme