Albert Camus Quotes
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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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I knew a pure heart who refused tot be mistrustful.... He had written at his doorstep: "From wherever you are, enter and be welcome". Who do you think responded to this lovely invitation? The militia, who made themselves at home and gutted him.
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No ends, simply means.
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Old women even forget how to love their sons. The heart gets worn out, Monsieur.
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It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.
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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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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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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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There is scarcely any passion without struggle.
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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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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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The act of love is a confession.
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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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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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He was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way.
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In the world today, only a philosophy of eternity could justify non-violence.
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It would be unjust, and moreover Utopian, for Shakespeare to direct the shoemakers' union. But it would be equally disastrous forthe shoemakers' union to ignore Shakespeare.
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Somebody has to have the last word. If not, every argument could be opposed by another and we'd never be done with it.
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I don't want to represent man as he is, but only as he might be.
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The world is unimportant and whoever recognizes this conquers his liberty.
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Freedom is not constituted primarily of privileges but of responsibilities.
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There was a time when I didn’t at any minute have the slightest idea how I could reach the next one. Yes, one can wage war in this world, ape love, torture one’s fellow man, or merely say evil of one’s neighbour while knitting. But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman.
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Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?
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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.