Albert Camus Quotes
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The kingdom of heaven will, in fact, appear on earth , but it will be ruled over by men a mere handful to begin with, who will be the Cassars, because they were the first to understand and later, with time, by all men.
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So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories.
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Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.
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I had been right I was still right I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing and I had done another. And so?
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And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.
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I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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Once in the midst of a seemingly endless winter, I discovered within myself an invincible spring.
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If only nature is real and if, in nature, only desire and destruction are legitimate, then, in that all humanity does not suffice to assuage the thirst for blood, the path of destruction must lead to universal annihilation.
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I am too far away from what I love and my distance is without remedy.
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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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It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.
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It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.
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Art does not tolerate reason.
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From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.
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Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it.
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Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification, signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.
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Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one's work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
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After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion.
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I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.
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From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder, everything has its truth.
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Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.
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Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
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In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced.
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Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.