Albert Camus > Quotes

“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.”
― Albert Camus

“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.”
― Albert Camus

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
― Albert Camus

“Live to the point of tears.”
― Albert Camus

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”
― Albert Camus

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.”
― Albert Camus

“There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.”
― Albert Camus

“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”
― Albert Camus

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
― Albert Camus

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
― Albert Camus

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
― Albert Camus

“Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.”
― Albert Camus

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
― Albert Camus

“I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
― Albert Camus

“When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.”
― Albert Camus, The First Man

“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
― Albert Camus, L'etranger

“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.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth”
― Albert Camus

“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.”
― Albert Camus

“You can't create experience, you undergo it.”
― Albert Camus

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
― Albert Camus

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
― Albert Camus

“I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”
― Albert Camus

“Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”
― Albert Camus

“I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.”
― Albert Camus, L'etranger

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
― Albert Camus

“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.”
― Albert Camus

“Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one's work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”
― Albert Camus

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.”
― Albert Camus

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“She was breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the weight of beings, the insane or static life, the long anguish of living or dying. After so many years running from fear, fleeing crazily, uselessly, she was finally coming to a halt. At the same time she seemed to be recovering her roots, and the sap rose anew in her body, which was no longer trembling. Pressing her whole belly against the parapet, leaning toward the wheeling sky, she was only waiting for her pounding heart to settle down, and for the silence to form in her. The last constellations of stars fell in bunches a little lower on the horizon of the desert, and stood motionless. Then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being, and overflowing wave upon wave to her moaning mouth. A moment later, the whole sky stretched out above her as she lay with her back against the cold earth.”
― Albert Camus

“A loveless world is a dead world.”
― Albert Camus

“Life can be magnificent and overwhelming -- that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live. ”
― Albert Camus

“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.”
― Albert Camus

“We are all special cases.”
― Albert Camus

“The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.”
― Albert Camus

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

“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.”
― Albert Camus

“She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her.”
― Albert Camus

“Peace is the only battle worth waging.”
― Albert Camus