Absurdity

The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. ~ Albert Camus

Absurdity is a term for things extremely unreasonable, or as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "this encyclopedia article is absurd". It derives from the Latin absurdusm meaning "out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin surdus means deaf, implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with seriousness in reasoning. In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with ridiculousness and nonsense. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Students of the absurd or advocates of the importance of recognizing it are often designated Absurdists, and usually consider it one of their major roles in human society to note subtle differences between something that can seem entirely "nonsense" and something which is "absurd", in that absurdity is often hidden within either ultra-seriousness or widely-trusted thought, and actually indicates something beyond any particular notions or definitions of "Good" or "Evil" — or any mortally conceivable concepts whatsoever.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified. ~ G. K. Chesterton

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. ~ Václav Havel

The more absurd life is, the more unsupportable death is. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

A

• The logical figure of the absurd, which presents as stringent the contradictory opposite of stringency, negates all the meaningfulness logic seems to provide in order to convict logic of its own absurdity: to convict it of using subject, predicate, and copula to lay out the nonidentical as though it were identical, as though it could be accommodated with forms.
  • Theodor Adorno, Can One Live After Auschwitz? (2003), p. 284

B

• Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
  • Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

C

• The absurd is born of the confrontation between the human call and the unreasonable silence of the world.
  • Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

• Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.
  • Albert Camus, in "Three Interviews" in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)

• The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.
  • Albert Camus, critiquing Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd (2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 43

• It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
  • G. K. Chesterton, "Spiritualism", in All Things Considered (1908)

• In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.
  • G. K. Chesterton, On the Comic Spirit

D

• There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, in "Mr. —nov and the Question of Art" Polnoye Sobraniye Sochinyeni [Complete Collected Works] (1895), Vol. 9

G

• Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
  • James A. Garfield, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (4 July 1865)

H

• Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it or simply avoid it.
  • Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (1986), ch. 2

• There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world.
  • Václav Havel, in an address upon receiving the Open Society Prize awarded by Central European University (24 June 1999)

• Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
  • Václav Havel, as quoted in Amnesty International's essay "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute"

• The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

M

• We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art.
  • Norman Mailer, Canniobals and Christians (1966), "Introducing Our Argument"

• A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity; it is an occupational risk.
  • Oswald Moseley, My Life (1968), ch.12

N

• From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
  • Napoleon I of France, speaking about troubles in the invasions of Russia (10 December 1812), as recorded by Abbé du Pradt, and quoted in History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Vol. 3 (1842) by Sir Archibald Alison, p. 503; often also translated as: There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

S

• I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incident divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.
  • George Santayana, in a letter to Logan Pearsall Smith (24 May 1918) in The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana 1910 - 1920 (2002), p. 319

• Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself. And he didn't even try to make the theory understandable in terms of the reality and experience of the rest of us. For if everybody else is also not what Jesus said he was, what good is what he said?
  • William Saroyan, Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)

• The more absurd life is, the more unsupportable death is.
  • Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words

W

• When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness' . . . because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity . . . And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.
  • Colin Wilson in The Black Room, p. 75 (1975)

See also

• Senselessness