Q0275

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: The Myth of Sisyphus. Theme: happiness.

English

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Thinker Albert Camus
School Philosophy of the Absurd
Source The Myth of Sisyphus
Theme Happiness
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to The Myth of Sisyphus and files it under Philosophy of the Absurd. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Albert Camus

Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a French-Algerian writer and thinker associated with the absurd: the tension between the human demand for meaning and a world that does not supply it. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 and rejected being labeled an existentialist in the Sartrean sense, while remaining central to twentieth-century debates about revolt, justice, and lucid living without appeal to transcendence.

How to read this passage

Greek eudaimonia, Buddhist analyses of craving, utilitarian happiness, and modern well-being research all contest the meaning of a good life. This passage enters that discussion through happiness.

Concepts in this quote

Happiness
Happiness—or flourishing—is a central aim in ethics: what makes a life go well, and whether pleasure alone is enough.

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.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”?

The passage is attributed to Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. The archive attributes this English wording to The Myth of Sisyphus and files it under Philosophy of the Absurd. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Albert Camus mean by happiness?

Greek eudaimonia, Buddhist analyses of craving, utilitarian happiness, and modern well-being research all contest the meaning of a good life. This passage enters that discussion through happiness.

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 happiness

  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 happiness theme