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Albert Camus Quotes - Page 26

All Quotes Acting Adventure Age Aging Alienation Anxiety Art Atheism Atheist Attitude Beach Beauty Belief Birth Bitterness Boredom Chaos Character Children Choices Community Compassion Confession Conformity Consciousness Country Courage Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Culture Cynicism Darkness Death Death Penalty Design Desire Destiny Dignity Discipline Divorce Doubt Drama Duty Dying Earth Effort Energy Ethics Evil Existentialism Experience Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Football Forgiveness Freedom Friends Friendship Funeral Future Generosity Genius Giving Giving Up God Goodness Gratitude Greatness Greek Guilt Happiness Happiness And Love Happy Harmony Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Heroism History Home Honesty Hope House Human Nature Humanity Hurt Idealism Ideology Imagination Independence Innocence Inspirational Inspiring Integrity Intelligence Joy Judgement Judging Judgment Justice Killing Knowledge Liberty Life Life And Death Logic Loss Love Love Life Luck Lying Meaning Of Life Memories Money Morality Morning Motivational Myth Nature Nihilism Nostalgia Office Pain Painting Passion Peace Personality Philosophy Politics Poverty Power Progress Psychology Purpose Reality Rebellion Regret Religion Responsibility Retirement Revolution Risk Running Sacrifice Selfishness Separation Shame Silence Simplicity Sin Sleep Solitude Son Sorrow Soul Spring Struggle Study Stupidity Success Suffering Summer Time Today Torture Tragedy Truth Twilight Unity Values Violence Virtue Waiting Wall War Weakness Winning Winter Wisdom Work Writing

When a war breaks out, people say: It's too stupid; it can't last long. But though a war may well be too stupid, that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though a war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

War, Stupid, Long

Albert Camus (1960). “Collected fiction”

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.

Distance, Long, People

Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.114, Vintage

These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.

Heart, Facts, Study

Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.3, Vintage

In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.

Dream, Taken, Men

ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.

Believe, Doubt, Fields

Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.10, Vintage

Because,' Cormery went on, 'when I was very young, very foolish, and very much alone ... you paid attention to me and, without seeming to, you opened for me the door to everything I love in the world.

Doors, Attention, World

People believe a man is in distress because his loved one dies in one day. But his real pain is less futile: it is that he finds out that sadness too does not last. Even pain has no meaning.

Pain, Real, Believe

We [Raymond and Meursault] stared at each other without blinking, and everything came to a stop there between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot.

Sea, Water, Silence

Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.

Elements, Unreality, Abstraction

"The Plague". Book by Albert Camus, 1947.

I have no friends, I only have accomplices now. On the other hand, my accomplices are more numerous than my friends: they are the human race.

Race, Hands, No Friends

Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

Self Worth, Men, Greek

"The Rebel". Book by Albert Camus, 1951.

Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will's impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.

Greek, Free Will, Boundaries

Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.190, Vintage

At the age of 40, having ordered meat very rare in restaurants all his life, he realized he actually liked it medium and not at all rare.

Age, Meat, Restaurants

I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor".

Hypocrisy, House, Labels

He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.

Retirement, Moving, Next Move

Albert Camus (2012). “Happy Death”, p.82, Vintage

From Pandora's Box, where all the ills of humanity swarmed, the Greeks drew out hope after all the others, as the most dreadful of all. I know no more stirring symbol; for, contrary to the general belief, hope equals resignation. And to live is not to resign oneself.

Greek, Humanity, Pandora's Box

Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.153, Vintage

It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.

Drama, Tragedy, Spain

I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

Philosophy, Thinking, Telling The Truth

"Resistance, Rebellion, and Death" by Albert Camus, "Pessimism and Tyranny", 1960.

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

Destiny, Emotion, Individual

Albert Camus (1960). “The plague: translated from the French”

…. Query: How contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting-room; by remaining on one's balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language on doesn't know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.

Sunday, Waiting Rooms, Office

Albert Camus (2012). “The Plague”, p.26, Vintage

The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable.

Crush, Heart, Fate

Albert Camus (1955). “The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays”

Something must happen; that is the reason for most human relationships. Something must happen; even servitude in love, in war, ordeath.

War, Boredom, Slavery

We know the surrealist solution: concrete irrationality, objective risk. Poetry is the conquest, the only possible conquest, of the 'supreme position', 'a certain position of the mind from where life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future... cease to be perceived in a contradictory sense.'

Real, Past, Life And Death

Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.97, Vintage

Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.

Children, Men, Perfect

Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.303, Vintage

There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

Country, Mean, Greatness

Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.5, Vintage

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