Albert Camus was born in French Algeria in 1913 into a poor family. His father was killed in the First World War before Camus could remember him, and he was raised by his widowed mother in modest circumstances.

Throughout his life he struggled with tuberculosis, witnessed the rise of fascism, joined the French Resistance during the Second World War, and spent much of his career asking one persistent question: how do we live meaningful lives in a world that so often appears indifferent to human suffering?

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Unlike many philosophers, Camus did not believe that meaning was waiting to be discovered, nor did he believe we should retreat into comforting illusions. Instead, he argued that we create meaning through the way we choose to live, even when life offers no guarantees. His philosophy was one of honesty, courage and quiet defiance.

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One place held a special significance for him: the Roman ruins of Tipasa on the Algerian coast. As a young man he found there a profound sense of happiness. The sunlight, the sea and the ancient stones reminded him that simply being alive could be enough. He celebrated that experience in an early essay filled with the confidence and joy of youth.

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Years later he returned. Between those two visits lay the devastation of war, the Nazi occupation of France, the moral uncertainty of the twentieth century and his own personal struggles. He returned to Tipasa not expecting to recapture his youth, but to discover whether anything of that earlier joy had survived.

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Standing once again among those ancient ruins, he realised that it had.

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The darkness had been real. It had changed him forever. Yet it had not extinguished something fundamental within him. He expressed that discovery in words that have inspired millions of people ever since:

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"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

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Those words are often mistaken for optimism. They were not. Camus knew too much about suffering for easy optimism. Instead, they expressed something deeper: resilience. The recognition that although hardship is part of the human condition, it does not have the final word. We may be wounded, disappointed or exhausted, but we are not necessarily defeated.

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Perhaps that is where philosophy offers its greatest gift. Not certainty. Not easy answers, but the confidence that we can face reality honestly, while still choosing compassion, purpose and hope.

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Albert Camus reminds us that whatever winter we may be living through, there remains within each of us the possibility of an invincible summer.