Albert Camus quotes

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

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.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

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.

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

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.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

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.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

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.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

It is necessary to fall in love... if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway.

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

Heroism is accessible. Happiness is more difficult.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

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.

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.

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

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.

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.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

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

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

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 things that unite us all.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

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.

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.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

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 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.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

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.

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.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

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.

Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

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.

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself - limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

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.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

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

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.

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.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.