Albert Camus Quotes
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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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If pimps and thieves everywhere were always punished, honest people would all believe themselves always to be innocent.
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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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Fancy language, like poplin, too often conceals an eczema.
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Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
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What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.
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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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Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
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Democracy is not the law of the majority but the protection of the minority.
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By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.
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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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I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.
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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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This world, such as it is, is not tolerable. Therefore I need the moon, or happiness, or immortality, I need something which is perhaps demented, but which is not of this world.
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Imagination offers people consolation for what they cannot be, and humor for what they actually are.
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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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Everything is true, and nothing is true!
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It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our homeland at the moment we are about to lose it.
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The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy.
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You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters — all that matters, really is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women , art, success — is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.
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When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.
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To remain a man in today's world, one must have not only unfailing energy and unwavering intensity, one must also have a little luck.
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There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.
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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.