Albert Camus Quotes
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Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That is the only concrete problem I know of today.
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Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.
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... it is true that I do not respect human life more than I respect my own life. And if it is easy for me to kill, that is because it is difficult for me to die.
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I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead. I couldn't even say that this was hard to stomach; really, there's no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized in time.
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There can be no question of masking the evidence, of suppressing the absurd by denying one of the terms of its equation. It is essential to know whether one can live with it or whether, on the other hand, logic commands one to die of it.
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We writers must know that we can never escape the common misery and that our only justification, if indeed there is a justification, is to speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so.
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He's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while.
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In this vast country that he had so loved, he was alone.
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Am well. Thinking of you always. Love.
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There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.
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I know myself too well to believe in pure virtue.
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In the end, we would like not to be guilty while at the same time being dispensed of the effort of purifying ourselves. Not enough cynicism and not enough virtue.
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It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.
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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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On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
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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.
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The revolutionary government was required to become the government of the war.
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Men and women consume one another rapidly in what is called "the act of love," or else settle down to a mild habit of conjugality. We seldom find a mean between these two extremes.
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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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All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can't judge if it's simple, but I know it's true.
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All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.
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Truth, like light is dazzling. By contrast, untruth is a beautiful sunset that enhances everything.
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Yes, everything is simple. It's people who complicate things.
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The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning.