Albert Camus Quotes
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Beware of those who say: "I know this too well to be able to express it." For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.
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When I was young, I expected from people more than they could give: neverending friendship and constant excitement. Now I expect less than they can actually can give: to stay close silently. And their feelings, friendship, noble deeds always seem like a miracle to me: a true grace.
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What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.
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Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when revolutions will have need of beauty.
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We are condemned to live together.
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Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.
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Obstinacy alone is not a virtue.
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Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.
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It is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering of being cannot be, it is life.
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You always get exaggerated notions of things you don't know anything about.
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Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. 'But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.' And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten-- since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably.
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Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.
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The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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The laws of nature may be operative up to a certain limit, beyond which they turn against themselves to give birth to the absurd.
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We're going forward, but nothing changes.
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We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But tasks are called superhuman when men take a long time to complete them, that is all.
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For a man who loves power, competition from the gods is annoying. I have done away with that. I have proven to these illusory godsthat a man, if he has the will, can practice, without any apprenticeship, their ridiculous trade.
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In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips.
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The urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature.
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To feel absolutely right is the beginning of the end.
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Let’s not beat around the bush; I love life - that’s my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.
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It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us.
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But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.
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Without work all life goes rotten.