Albert Camus Quotes
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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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False judges are held up in the world's admiration and I alone know the true ones.
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Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.
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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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There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.
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In the world there is, parallel to the force of death and constraint, an enormous force of persuasion that is called culture.
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... here, where the gaze is stopped everywhere, the whole earth is designed so that the face turns upward and the gaze implores. Oh! I hate this world where we are reduced to God.
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Camus himself described this work as 'an attempt to understand the time I live in'.
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There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.
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There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
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We call first truths those we discover after all the others.
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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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A true masterpiece does not tell everything.
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There are always reasons for murdering a man. But there is no justification for his existence.
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Liberty is the right not to lie.
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Generally, I like all islands. There, it is easier to rule.
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Any country where I am not bored is a country that teaches me nothing.
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We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity.
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...there was only one thing that interested her and that was getting into bed with men whenever she'd the chance. And I warned her straight. 'You'll be sorry one day, my girl, and wish you'd got me back'.
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One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity.
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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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If pimps and thieves everywhere were always punished, honest people would all believe themselves always to be innocent.
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Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.
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One cannot be a part-time nihilist.