Albert Camus Quotes

Camus himself described this work as 'an attempt to understand the time I live in'.

It is immoral not to tell.

But who would dare condemn me in this world with no judges, where no one is innocent!

Having money is a way of being free of money.

Intelligence in chains loses in lucidity what it gains in intensity.

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.

The more I produce, the less I am certain. On the road along which the artist walks, night falls ever more densely. Finally, he dies blind.

The loss of love is the loss of all rights, even though one had them all.

There is nothing abstract about pain. It is specific, it is real, and, when it is intense, it is world destroying.

Liberty is dangerous, as hard to get along with as it is exciting.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

The act of love . . . is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

We spend our days in deliberating, and we end them without coming to any resolve.

Rebellion, in man, is the refusal to be treated as an object and to be reduced to simple historical terms. It is the affirmation of a nature common to all men, which eludes the world of power.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long.

I'd buy myself a cabin on the beach, I'd put some glue in my navel, and I'd stick a flag in there. Then I'd wait to see which way the wind was blowing.

Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.

Most men are like me. They cannot live in a universe where the most bizarre thought can in one second enter into the realm of reality--where, most often, it does enter, like a knife in a heart.

I have always thought it would be easier to redeem a man steeped in vice and crime than a greedy, narrow-minded, pitiless merchant.

Cruel irony, the poor man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.

No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all.

Only the sea, murmurous behind the dingy checkerboard of houses, told of the unrest, the precariousness, of all things in this world.

L'absurde est la notion essentielle et la premie' re ve? rite? . The absurd is the fundamental idea and the first truth.

I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced.

[Liberty] is a choreand a long-distance race, quite solitary, quite exhausting.

Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about.

Absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction, therefore it destroys freedom.

Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me.

But all the long speeches, all the interminable days and hours that people had spent talking about my soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirling river that was making me dizzy.

If one could only say just once: 'this is clear', all would be saved

When the body is sad, the heart languishes.

I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.

The laws of nature may be operative up to a certain limit, beyond which they turn against themselves to give birth to the absurd.

The future is the only kind of property that the masters willingly concede to the slaves.

It is not true that the heart wears out - but the body creates this illusion.

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.

Happiness is not everything and men have their duties. Mine is to find my mother, a homeland

For ever, I shall be a stranger to myself.

A man who has become conscious of the absurd is for ever bound to it.

Yes, I'm happy, in human terms.

The harshest winter finds an invincible summer in us.

A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.

The truth, as the light, makes blind.

Nature is a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given.