Albert Camus Quotes
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Morality, when formal, devours.
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If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them they could perceive what they have made of us.
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To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.
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The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.
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A trial cannot be conducted by announcing the general culpability of a civilization. Only the actual deeds which, at least, stank in the nostrils of the entire world were brought to judgment.
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Without freedom there is no art.
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There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.
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The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.
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A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.
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Any country where I am not bored is a country that teaches me nothing.
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Thoughts of suicide have got me through many a bad night.
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Without memories, without hope, they lived for the moment only. indeed, the here and now had come to mean everything to them. For there is no denying that the plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship. Naturally enough, since love asks something of the future, and nothing was left us but a series of present moments.
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Knowing what Christ knew , knowing all about mankind--ah! who would have thought that the crime is not so much to make others die, but to die oneself--confronted day and night with his innocent crime, it became too difficult to go on. It was better to get it over with, to not defend himself, to die, in order not to be the only one to have survived, and to go elsewhere, where, perhaps, he would be supported.
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As for Hitler, his professed religion unhesitatingly juxtaposed the God-Providence and Valhalla. Actually his god was an argument at a political meeting and a manner of reaching an impressive climax at the end of speeches.
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It's not the struggle that makes us artists, but Art that makes us struggle.
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In truth, I was so good at being a man, with such plenitude and simplicity, that I thought I was something of a superman.
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Nothing in life is worth, turning your back on, if you love it.
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And for all his life it would be kindness and love that made him cry, never pain or persecution, which on the contrary only reinforced his spirit and his resolution.
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A liking for truth at any cost is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing resists. It's a vice, at times a comfort, or a selfishness.
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In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion; in order to serve others better, one has to hold them at a distance for a time. But where can one find the solitude necessary to vigor, the deep breath in which the mind collects itself and courage gauges its strength? There remain big cities.
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Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will's impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.
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My profession lent itself nicely to my vocation for heights. It freed me of any bitterness towards my fellow men, who were alwaysin my debt, without my owing them anything. It placed me above the judge whom, I in turn judged, above the defendant whom I forced into gratitude.
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It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly striving against their own nature.
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To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion.