Create Dangerously Quotes

“Perhaps there is no peace for an artist other than the peace found in the heat of combat.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“We must know that we can never escape the common misery and that our only justification, if indeed there is a justification, is to speak up, insofar as we can, for those who cannot do so.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Artists interested in becoming famous in our society should know that it is not they who will become famous, but another version of themselves with the same name, and that other version will eventually take over and perhaps, one day, kill the true artist within them.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“To create today means to create dangerously.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Tyrants know there is in the work of art an emancipatory force, which is mysterious only to those who do not revere it. Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and this is its whole secret.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“But art, because of the inherent freedom that is its very essence, as I have tried to explain, unites, wherever tyranny divides. So how could it be surprising that art is the chosen enemy of every kind of oppression? How could it be surprising that artists and intellectuals are the primary victims of modern tyrannies, whether they are right-wing or left-wing? Tyrants know that great works embody a force for emancipation that is only mysterious to those who do not worship art. Every great work of art makes humanity richer and more admirable, and that is its only secret. And even thousands of concentration camps and prison cells cannot obliterate this deeply moving testimony to dignity.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Brutality is never temporary. It does not respect the boundaries set for it, and so it is natural that brutality will spread, first corrupting art, then life. Then, out of the misfortunes and bloodshed of humankind, we see born insignificant literature, frivolous newspapers, photographed portraits, and youth-club plays in which hatred replaces religion. Art then ends up in forced optimism, which is precisely the worst of indulgences, and the most pathetic of lies.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Art advances between two chasms, which are frivolity and propaganda.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“To paint a still life, a painter and an apple must confront and adjust to each other.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Among us, for instance, in Western Europe, freedom is officially approved. But such freedom makes me think of the poor female cousin in certain middle-class families. She has become a widow; she has lost her natural protector. So she has been taken in, given a room on the top floor, and is welcome in the kitchen. She is occasionally paraded publicly on Sunday, to prove that one is virtuous and not a dirty dog. But for everything else, and especially on state occasions, she is requested to keep her mouth shut. And even if some policeman idly takes liberties with her in dark corners, one doesn't make a fuss about it, for she has seen such things before, especially with the master of the house, and, after all, it's not worth getting in bad with the legal authorities.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Today, the greatest fame consists of being admired or detested without having been read.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“This is why many of our artists aspire to be scorned, have a bad conscience if they aren't, and wish, at the same time, to be both applauded and booed.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“The aim of art, on the contrary, is not to legislate or reign supreme, but rather to understand first of all. Sometimes it does reign supreme, as a result of understanding. But no work of genius has ever been based on hatred and contempt.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“in order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death - these are the things that unite us all. We resemble one another in what we see together, in what we suffer together. Dreams change from individual to individual, but the reality of the world is common to us all.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Art for art's sake, the entertainment of a solitary artist, is indeed the artificial art of a factitious and self-absorbed society. The logical result of such a theory is the art of little cliques or the purely formal art fed on affectations and abstractions and ending in the destruction of all reality.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“The days of irresponsible artists are over. We will miss the brief moments of happiness they brought us. But at the same time, we will recognize that this ordeal has given us the possibility of being truthful, and we will accept that challenge.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Whatever the great works of art of the future might be, they will all contain the same secret, forged by courage and freedom, nourished by the daring of thousands of artists from every century and every nation. Yes, when modern tyrannies point out that artists, even when confined to their profession, are the public enemy, they are right. But they also pay homage, through the artist, to an image of humankind that nothing, up until now, has had the power to destroy.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Artists, like everyone else, must take up their oars without dying, if possible.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“But to speak to everyone about everyone, it is necessary to speak of what everyone knows and the reality that is common to us all. The sea, the rain, our needs and desires, the struggle against death—these are the things that unite us. We resemble each other through what we see together, the things we suffer through together. Dreams change according to the person, but the reality of the world is our common ground.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“It is easy to see what art is at risk of losing in such continual involvement: their former comfort, mainly, and that divine freedom that lives and breathes in Mozart's works. We can now better understand the tormented and tenacious atmosphere of our works of art, their furrowed brow and sudden debacles. And so, we tell ourselves we understand that this is why there are more journalists than writers, or amateur painters than Cézannes, and why children's literature and murder mysteries have taken the place of Tolstoy's War and Peace or Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Every great work of art makes humanity richer and more admirable and that is its only secret.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“A society founded on signs is, in its essence, an artificial society in which man's carnal truth is hadled as something artificial.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“But now the artist is in the amphitheatre. Of necessity, his voice is not quite the same; it is not nearly so firm.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“hope is awakened, given life, sustained, by the millions of individuals whose deeds and actions, every day, break down borders and refute the worst moments in history, to allow the truth—which is always in danger—to shine brightly, even if only fleetingly, the truth, which every individual builds for us all, created out of suffering and joy.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Well, our age is one of those fires whose indefensible flames will probably reduce many great works of art to ashes! But the works that survive will remain strong and intact, and when describing them, we will be able, without hesitation, to revel in that supreme joy of the intelligence we call “admiration.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“But if art is not a dangerous adventure, then what is it, and what is its justification? No, free artists cannot enjoy comfort any more than free people can. Free artists are those who, with great difficulty, create order themselves. The more chaos they must bring order to, the stricter their rules will be, and the more they will have affirmed their freedom. Gide said something that I have always agreed with, even though it might be misunderstood: “Art lives from constraint and dies from freedom.” That is true, but we must not draw the conclusion that art should be controlled. Art only lives through the constraints it places upon itself: it dies from any others. On the other hand, if art does not control itself, it descends into madness and is enslaved by its own illusions. The most liberated form of art, and the most rebellious, will thus be the most enduring; it will glorify the greatest effort. If a society and its artists do not accept this long, liberating task, if they yield to the comforts of entertainment or conformity, to the diversions of art for art’s sake or the moralizing of realistic art, its artists will remain entrenched in nihilism and sterility. Saying this means that a rebirth in art today depends on our courage and our desire to see clearly.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“the lesson artists learn from beauty, if it is honestly learned, is not the lesson of egotism but of solid brotherhood. When conceived in this way, beauty has never enslaved anyone. Quite the opposite. On every day, at every moment, for thousands of years, beauty has consoled millions of people in their servitude, and, sometimes, even freed some of them forever.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“A prophet, priest, or politician can judge absolutely, and moreover, as we well know, they do not refrain from doing so. But artists cannot. If they judged absolutely, they would classify the nuances of reality as either good or evil, with nothing in between, thus creating melodrama. The goal of art, on the contrary, is not to establish rules or to reign; it is first and foremost to understand.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Every now and then, a new world emerges, a world that is different from our everyday world, yet the same, unique but universal, full of innocent insecurity, born for a brief moment thanks to the strength and dissatisfaction of the genius. It is something and yet it is not something—the world is nothing and the world is everything. Such is the dual, tireless cry of all true artists, the cry that keeps them standing, eyes wide open, and that, from time to time, awakens in everyone, deep within the heart of this sleepy world, the insistent yet fleeting image of a reality that we recognize without having ever experienced it.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously

“Artists choose their purpose as much as they are chosen by that purpose. In a certain way, art is a revolt against the world in that it encompasses what is fleeting and unfinished: art does not, therefore, take on anything more than the purpose of giving another shape to a reality that it is, nevertheless, constrained to conserve, because reality is the source of art’s emotion. In this respect, we are all realists and no one is a realist. Art is neither total rejection nor total acceptance of what is. It is both rejection and acceptance, at one and the same time, and that is why it can be continually and perpetually torn apart. Artists always find themselves dealing with this ambiguity, incapable of rejecting what is real, yet still devoted to challenging the ever-unfinished aspects of reality.”
― Albert Camus, Create Dangerously