Albert Camus Quotes And Sayings

The Role Of The Intellectual Cannot Be To Excuse The Violence Of One Side And Condemn That Of The Other.

The Myth Of Unlimited Production Brings War In Its Train As Inevitably As Clouds Announce A Storm.

Virtue Cannot Separate Itself From Reality Without Becoming A Principle Of Evil.

I Have Never Been Able To Renounce The Light, The Pleasure Of Being, And The Freedom In Which I Grew Up.

We Rarely Confide In Those Who Are Better Than We Are.

Real Generosity Toward The Future Lies In Giving All To The Present.

The Day When I Am No More Than A Writer I Shall Cease To Be A Writer.

An Intellectual Is Someone Whose Mind Watches Itself.

Basically, At The Very Bottom Of Life, Which Seduces Us All, There Is Only Absurdity, And More Absurdity. And Maybe That's What Gives Us Our Joy For Living, Because The Only Thing That Can Defeat Absurdity Is Lucidity.

The Gods Had Condemned Sisyphus To Ceaselessly Rolling A Rock To The Top Of A Mountain, Whence The Stone Would Fall Back Of Its Own Weight. They Had Thought With Some Reason That There Is No More Dreadful Punishment Than Futile And Hopeless Labor.

I Would Rather Live My Life As If There Is A God And Die To Find Out There Isn't, Than Live As If There Isn't And To Die To Find Out That There Is.

The Struggle Itself Towards The Heights Is Enough To Fill A Man's Heart. One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy.

Don't Walk Behind Me; I May Not Lead. Don't Walk In Front Of Me; I May Not Follow. Just Walk Beside Me And Be My Friend.

A Man's Work Is Nothing But This Slow Trek To Rediscover, Through The Detours Of Art, Those Two Or Three Great And Simple Images In Whose Presence His Heart First Opened.

There Is But One Truly Serious Philosophical Problem And That Is Suicide.

We Continue To Shape Our Personality All Our Life. If We Knew Ourselves Perfectly, We Should Die.

Beauty Is Unbearable, Drives Us To Despair, Offering Us For A Minute The Glimpse Of An Eternity That We Should Like To Stretch Out Over The Whole Of Time.

Nobody Realizes That Some People Expend Tremendous Energy Merely To Be Normal.

Your Successes And Happiness Are Forgiven You Only If You Generously Consent To Share Them.

How Can Sincerity Be A Condition Of Friendship? A Taste For Truth At Any Cost Is A Passion Which Spares Nothing.

For Centuries The Death Penalty, Often Accompanied By Barbarous Refinements, Has Been Trying To Hold Crime In Check; Yet Crime Persists. Why? Because The Instincts That Are Warring In Man Are Not, As The Law Claims, Constant Forces In A State Of Equilibrium.

At Any Street Corner The Feeling Of Absurdity Can Strike Any Man In The Face.

Freedom Is Nothing But A Chance To Be Better.

There Will Be No Lasting Peace Either In The Heart Of Individuals Or In Social Customs Until Death Is Outlawed.

Men Are Convinced Of Your Arguments, Your Sincerity, And The Seriousness Of Your Efforts Only By Your Death.

To Be Happy We Must Not Be Too Concerned With Others.

By Definition, A Government Has No Conscience. Sometimes It Has A Policy, But Nothing More.

Martyrs, My Friend, Have To Choose Between Being Forgotten, Mocked Or Used. As For Being Understood - Never.

The World Is Never Quiet, Even Its Silence Eternally Resounds With The Same Notes, In Vibrations Which Escape Our Ears. As For Those That We Perceive, They Carry Sounds To Us, Occasionally A Chord, Never A Melody.

A Free Press Can, Of Course, Be Good Or Bad, But, Most Certainly Without Freedom, The Press Will Never Be Anything But Bad.

We Get Into The Habit Of Living Before Acquiring The Habit Of Thinking. In That Race Which Daily Hastens Us Towards Death, The Body Maintains Its Irreparable Lead.

To Correct A Natural Indifference I Was Placed Half-way Between Misery And The Sun. Misery Kept Me From Believing That All Was Well Under The Sun, And The Sun Taught Me That History Wasn't Everything.

The Modern Mind Is In Complete Disarray. Knowledge Has Stretched Itself To The Point Where Neither The World Nor Our Intelligence Can Find Any Foot-hold. It Is A Fact That We Are Suffering From Nihilism.

In The Depth Of Winter I Finally Learned That There Was In Me An Invincible Summer.

After All, Every Murderer When He Kills Runs The Risk Of The Most Dreadful Of Deaths, Whereas Those Who Kill Him Risk Nothing Except Promotion.

One Leader, One People, Signifies One Master And Millions Of Slaves.

Retaliation Is Related To Nature And Instinct, Not To Law. Law, By Definition, Cannot Obey The Same Rules As Nature.

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.

What Is A Rebel? A Man Who Says No: But Whose Refusal Does Not Imply A Renunciation.

The Need To Be Right Is The Sign Of A Vulgar Mind.

Men Must Live And Create. Live To The Point Of Tears.

Every Act Of Rebellion Expresses A Nostalgia For Innocence And An Appeal To The Essence Of Being.

Nothing Is More Despicable Than Respect Based On Fear.

There Is No Love Of Life Without Despair Of Life.

You Will Never Be Happy If You Continue To Search For What Happiness Consists Of. You Will Never Live If You Are Looking For The Meaning Of Life.

Each Generation Doubtless Feels Called Upon To Reform The World. Mine Knows That It Will Not Reform It, But Its Task Is Perhaps Even Greater. It Consists In Preventing The World From Destroying Itself.

Truth Is Mysterious, Elusive, Always To Be Conquered. Liberty Is Dangerous, As Hard To Live With As It Is Elating. We Must March Toward These Two Goals, Painfully But Resolutely, Certain In Advance Of Our Failings On So Long A Road.

No Cause Justifies The Deaths Of Innocent People.

Lying Is Not Only Saying What Isn't True. It Is Also, In Fact Especially, Saying More Than Is True And, In The Case Of The Human Heart, Saying More Than One Feels. We All Do It, Every Day, To Make Life Simpler.

No Matter What Cause One Defends, It Will Suffer Permanent Disgrace If One Resorts To Blind Attacks On Crowds Of Innocent People.