Albert Camus, طاعون Quotes

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

One cannot be a part-time nihilist.

We do not know how to eliminate evil, but we do know how to feed some of the hungry and heal some of the infirmed.

If we understood the enigmas of life there would be no need for art.

Imagination offers people consolation for what they cannot be, and humor for what they actually are.

One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Integrity has no need of rules.

Yes, and when the love of life disappears, no meaning can console us.

Thoughts of suicide have got me through many a bad night.

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.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

Madness such as this, its like trying to stop a fire with the moisture from a kiss

What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

Tout re volutionnaire finit en oppresseur ou en he re tique. Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

But sometimes it takes more courage to live than to shoot yourself.

Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.

It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.

There is a life and there is a death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.

There is no frontier between being and appearing.

There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart.

Psychology is action, not thinking about oneself. We continue to shape our personality all our life. To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

A lot of jobs don't allow you to be who you are. There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.

He was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way.

To feel absolutely right is the beginning of the end.

The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.

Integrity needs no rules.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

Although it was the middle of winter, I finally realized that, within me, summer was inextinguishable.

Does the end justify the means? That is possible. But what will justify the end? To that question, which historical thought leaves pending, rebellion replies: the means.

You know, a man always judges himself by the balance he can strike between the needs of his body and the demands of his mind. You're judging yourself now, Mersaut, and you don't like the sentence.

...Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

One might think, that a period which, within fifty years, uproots, enslaves or kills seventy million human beings, should only, and forthwith, be condemned. But also its guilt must be understood.

More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

Sometimes at night I would sleep open-eyed underneath a sky dripping with stars. I was alive then.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

Forever I shall be a stranger to myself. In psychology as in logic, there are truths but no truth.

To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred.

The most exhausting effort in my life has been to suppress my own nature in order to make it serve my biggest plans.

The urge to revolt is one of the essential dimensions of human nature.

Whatever prevents you from doing your work has become your work.

When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.

We're going forward, but nothing changes.

I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.

If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.