Albert Camus Quotes
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If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.
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We are not so mad as to think that we shall create a world in which murder will not occur. We are fighting for a world in which murder will no longer be legal.
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If I convince myself that this life has no other aspect than that of the absurd, if I feel that its whole equilibrium depends on that perpetual opposition between my conscious revolt and the darkness in which it struggles, if I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.
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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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Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.
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The struggle to the top alone will make a human heart SWELL.
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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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The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
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My dear, In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back. Truly yours, Albert Camus
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No excuses ever, for anyone; that is my principle at the outset. I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance. With me there is no giving of absolution or blessing.
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Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.
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All I know of morality I learned from football.
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To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.
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To me, art is not a solitary delight. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of men by providing them with a privileged image of our common joys and woes.
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They came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose.
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From Pandora's Box, where all the ills of humanity swarmed, the Greeks drew out hope after all the others, as the most dreadful of all. I know no more stirring symbol; for, contrary to the general belief, hope equals resignation. And to live is not to resign oneself.
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What made me run away was doubtless not so much the fear of settling down, but of settling down permanently in something ugly.
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Liberty is the right not to lie.
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We are all special cases.
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Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.
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Ah! my friend, for whomever is alone, without a god and without a master, the weight of time is terrible. One must then choose a master, God being out of style.
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Love is the kind of illness that does not spare the intelligent or the dull.
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In a world that has ceased to believe in sin, the artist is responsible for the preaching.
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When I was young, I expected from people more than they could give: neverending friendship and constant excitement. Now I expect less than they can actually can give: to stay close silently. And their feelings, friendship, noble deeds always seem like a miracle to me: a true grace.