Quotes by Albert Camus

About Albert Camus:

Albert Camus was a French Nobel Prize–winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Je puis nier une chose sans me croire obligé de la salir ou de retirer aux autres le droit d'y croire.

Albert Camus

We can act only in our time, among the people who surround us. We shall be capable of nothing until we know whether we have the right to kill our fellow men, or the right to let them be killed. Since all contemporary action leads to murder, direct or...

Albert Camus

In the age of ideologies, we must make up our minds about murder. If murder has rational foundations, then our period and we ourselves have significance. If it has no such foundations, then we are plunged into madness there is no way out except to fi...

Albert Camus

You see, I’ve heard of a man whose friend had been imprisoned and who slept on the floor of his room every night in order not to enjoy a comfort of which his friend had been deprived.

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

He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen - and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery...

Albert Camus

The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone. As it is not so easy as the detective novels might lead one to believe, one generally relies on politics and joins the crueles...

Albert Camus

Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world.

Albert Camus

If pimps and thieves were invariably sentenced, all decent people would get to thinking they themselves were constantly innocent.

Albert Camus

Who, cher monsieur, will sleep on the floor for us? Whether I am capable of it myself? Look, I'd like to be and I shall be. Yes, we shall all be capable of it one day, and that will be salvation.

Albert Camus

God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgement. Allow me to laugh respectfully. I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgement of men....

Albert Camus

Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.

Albert Camus

But the heart has its own memory and I have forgotten nothing.

Albert Camus

There is something divine in mindless beauty.

Albert Camus

But a man's beauty represents inner, functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face? Mersault was aware of this now, delighting in his vanity and smiling at his secret demo...

Albert Camus

...he was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way...

Albert Camus

Their pleasures are fierce and their sleep impenetrable. And they know that the body has a soul in which the soul has no part.

Albert Camus

Beyond the curve of his days he glimpsed neither superhuman happiness nor eternity--happiness was human, eternity ordinary.

Albert Camus

Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that com...

Albert Camus

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. Idlen...

Albert Camus

There's the risk of being loved...and that would keep me from being happy.

Albert Camus

Author Bio

  • NameAlbert Camus
  • DescriptionFrench author and journalist
  • BornNovember 7, 1913
  • DiedJanuary 4, 1960
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionWriter; Philosopher; Novelist; Journalist; Essayist; Playwright
  • WorksThe Rebel; A Happy Death; The Fall
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature