Albert Camus Quotes
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The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.
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Of course, true love is exceptional - two or three times a century, more or less. The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom.
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Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.
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To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.
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Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.
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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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Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.
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Freedom is not constituted primarily of privileges but of responsibilities.
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To govern means to pillage, as everyone knows.
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The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds.
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There are some individuals who have too strong a craving, a will, and a nostalgia for happiness ever to reach it. They always retain a bitter and passionate aftertaste, and that's the best they can hope for.
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He was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way.
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To be born to create, to love, to win at games is to be born to live in time of peace. But war teaches us to lose everything and become what we were not. It all becomes a question of style.
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The act of love is a confession.
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Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.
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As for those whose role it is to love us – I mean, relatives and in-laws – It's a different tune. They find the right word, but it's usually the one that wounds.
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More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand, and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other.
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Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time.
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The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action.
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It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.
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The world is unimportant and whoever recognizes this conquers his liberty.
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In the world today, only a philosophy of eternity could justify non-violence.
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The absurd is sin without God.
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After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.