Søren Kierkegaard

“Whatever one generation learns from another, no generation learns the genuinely human from a previous one. In this respect, every generation begins primitively, has no other task than each previous generation, and advances no further, provided the previous generation has not betrayed the task and deceived itself. This genuinely human quality is passion, in which the one generation perfectly understands the other and understands itself as well. Thus no generation has learned how to love from another, no generation gets to begin at any other point than at the beginning, no later generation has a shorter task that the previous one, and if someone here is unwilling to abide with love like those previous generations but wants to go further, than that is only foolish and idle talk.” (Fear and Trembling)

Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

“The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But itis tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.”

“If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.”

“When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man’s heart: this is the rock’s victory, this is the rock itself.”

“Crushing truths perish from being acknowledged.”

“Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.”

“Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go.”