Albert Camus Quotes
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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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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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I sometimes need to write things which I cannot completely control but which therefore prove that what is in me is stronger than I am.
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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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History has shown that the less people read, the more books they buy.
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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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But when a man has had only four hours' sleep he isn't sentimental. He sees things as they are: that is to say, he sees them in the garish light of justice; hideous, witless 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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What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.
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We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.
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On certain mornings, as we turn a corner, an exquisite dew falls on our heart and then vanishes. But the freshness lingers, and this, always, is what the heart needs. The earth must have risen in just such a light the morning the world was born.
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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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To understand one's world, one must sometimes turn away from it! To serve better, one must briefly hold it at a distance. Where can the necessary solitude be found, the long breathing space in which mind gathers its strength and takes stock of its courage.
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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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To lose the touch of flowers and women's hands is the supreme separation.
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When the body is sad, the heart languishes.
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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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May heaven protect us, cher monsieur, from being set on a pedestal by our friends!!!
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I am alive again, now that I can no longer stand to live.
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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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I have always felt I lived on the high seas, threatened, at the heart of a royal happiness.
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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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For ever, I shall be a stranger to myself.
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I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn't see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn't unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.