Albert Camus Quotes
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The urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature.
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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.
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No doubt our love was still there, but quite simply it was unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. It was no longer anything except a patience with no future and a stubborn wait.
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I'd buy myself a cabin on the beach, I'd put some glue in my navel, and I'd stick a flag in there. Then I'd wait to see which way the wind was blowing.
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... unhappiness is like marriage. We believe we chose it, but then it is choosing us. That is how it is, we can do nothing about it.
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If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.
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Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian.
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The absurd is essentially a divorce. It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation.
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Although it was the middle of winter, I finally realized that, within me, summer was inextinguishable.
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Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him.
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Moreover, most people, assuming they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not combine them naively with a thoroughly immoral way of living, had replace normal religious practice by more or less extravagant superstitions.
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All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences that legitimize or cancel it. A mind imbued with the absurd merely judges that those consequences must be considered calmly.
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They knew now that if there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love.
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The true work of art is always on the human scale. It is essentially the one that says, 'less.
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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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Without work all life goes rotten.
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Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.
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You must have a love, a great love, to ensure an alibi at unjustified despairs that conquer all of us.
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The more I accuse myself, the more right I have to judge you. Even better, I make you judge yourself, which comforts me the more.
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Love cannot accept what it is. Everywhere on earth it cries out against kindness, compassion, intelligence, everything that leads to compromise. Love demands the impossible, the absolute, the sky on fire, inexhaustible springtime, life after death, and death itself transfigured into eternal life.
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Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and this is its whole secret.
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All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.
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And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.
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This is the century of fear.