Albert Camus, طاعون Quotes

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

After another moment's silence she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might disgust her for the very same reason.

Happiness is generous. It does not subsist on destruction.

And real nobility (that of the heart) is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

I make myself strict rules in order to correct my nature. But it is my nature that I finally obey.

…there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is - common decency.

I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.

It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.

Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne...Oh no! It's a...long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting.

A loveless world is a dead world.

The absurd hero's refusal to hope becomes his singular ability to live in the present with passion.

We are not so mad as to think that we shall create a world in which murder will not occur. We are fighting for a world in which murder will no longer be legal.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking.

Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.

Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?" "Yes," I said.

We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

When I see a new face, something sets off an alarm bell inside me. 'slow down! Danger!' Even when the attraction is strongest, I am on my guard.

If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

There is always a certain hour of the day and of the night when a man’s courage is at its lowest ebb, and it was that hour only that he feared.

Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.

But - I cannot make a choice. I have my own sorrow, but I suffer with him, too; I share his pain. I understand all - that is my trouble.

It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence.

In order to be created, a work of art must first make use of the dark forces of the soul

The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.

Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves.

Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ("The Plague")

We are all special cases.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.

It's better to bet on this life than on the next.

History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.

Murder is terribly exhausting.

Freedom is not constituted primarily of privileges but of responsibilities.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys.

I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.

I have a very old and very faithful attachment for dogs. I like them because they always forgive.

We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

Believe me, the hardest thing for a man to give up is that which he really doesn't want, after all.

Morality, when formal, devours.

There is a solitude in poverty, but a solitude which restores to each thing its value.

Humans are creatures, who spent their lifes trying to convince themselves, that their existence is not absurd