Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.
Interpretation
True happiness is found in the freedom of living, as everything else is just a fleeting experience.
In this quote, Albert Camus suggests that the only inevitable aspect of life is death, and everything else, including joy and happiness, is intertwined with the concept of liberty. Happiness is not merely about pleasant experiences; it is about the freedom to live authentically and fully, recognizing that even in the face of mortality, our experiences of joy are valuable and shaped by our freedom.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing life, one might quote Camus to highlight the importance of appreciating freedom.
The Poor Man whom everyone speaks of, the Poor Man whom everyone pities, one of the repulsive Poor from whom charitable souls keep their distance, he has still said nothing. Or, rather, he has spoken through the voice of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At least, they said so. And these shameful impostures fed their authors. Cruel irony, the Poor Man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.
The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds.
Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me.
Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.
A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.
At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.
News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising.
One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.
How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.
Fundamentalism as it is called is not confined to the Muslim world. It is something that we have seen in different parts of the world. Let us hope that a dialogue between the followers of the three great monotheistic religions could help in putting an end to this.
When people get rich, they cut themselves off from the context that has earned them these riches - the context of the common men. They forget they are part of society.
It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.
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