Albert Camus Quotes
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On the ridge where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lays the freedom of Art.
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The only way out of international dictatorship is to place international law above governments, which means that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part.
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The world expects of Christians that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly and so formulate their protest that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all fuzzy abstractions and plant themselves squarely in front of the bloody face of history. We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and unmistakably and come what may, to stand by what they have said.
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When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.
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I felt as though I was partly unlearning what i had never learned and yet knew so well: I mean, how to live.
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These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.
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Ah cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They are They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood--never!
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Nothing is given to mankind and what little men can conquer must be paid for with unjust death. But man's grandeur lies elsewhere, in his decision to rise above his condition.
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I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.
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Many artists, even the greatest ones, are not sure of their own existence. So they search for proof, they judge, they condemn. It strengthens them, it is the beginnings of existence. They are alone!
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Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.
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The principle can be established that for a man who does not cheat what he believes to be true must determine his actions.
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Life can be magnificent and overwhelming -- that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.
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Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.
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... I suppose that it is not so easy to go home and it takes a bit of time to make a son out of a stranger.
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I have the loftiest idea, and the most passionate one, of art. Much too lofty to agree to subject it to anything. Much too passionate to want to divorce it from anything.
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“To think the way you do,” he said smiling, “you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope.” “On both, perhaps.”
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One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.
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To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.
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...the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.
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I am alive again, now that I can no longer stand to live.
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Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.
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To lose the touch of flowers and women's hands is the supreme separation.
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Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about. In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.