Quotes by Albert Camus

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.

I hope the dogs dont bark tonight. I always think its mine

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

It is necessary to fall in love – the better to provide an alibi for all the despair we are going to feel anyway.

But this time is ours, and we cannot live hating ourselves

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

He marveled at the strange blindness by which men, though they are so alert to what changes in themselves, impose on their friends an image chosen for them once and for all. He was being judged by what he had been. Just as dogs dont change character, men are dogs for one another.

I cannot stand the company of men. They flatter or they judge. I can stand neither of the two.

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

I never truly believed that human business was some serious thing.

How did I picture the life after the grave? I fairly bawled out at him: A life in which I can remember this life on earth. Thats all I want of it.

Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory... Everything is forgotten, even a great love. Thats whats sad about life, and also whats wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. Thats why its good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion - it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.

But memory is less disposed to compromise

Tarrou had lost the match, as he put it. But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection and being destined one day to remember it. So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou, perhaps, would have called that winning the match.

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

Any country where I am not bored is a country that teaches me nothing.

What gives value to travel is fear. It is the fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country … we are seized by a vague fear, and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits … this is why we should not say that we travel for pleasure. There is no pleasure in traveling, and I look upon it more as an occasion for spiritual testing … Pleasure takes us away from ourselves in the same way as distraction, in Pascal’s use of the word, takes us away from God. Travel, which is like a greater and a graver science, brings us back to ourselves.

What Im sure of, he began, is that you cant be happy without money. Thats all. I dont like superficiality and I dont like romanticism. I like to be conscious. And what Ive noticed is that theres a kind of spiritual snobbism in certain superior beings who think that money isnt necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly. You see, Mersault, for a man who is well born, being happy is never complicated. Its enough to take up the general fate, only not with the will for renunciation like so many fake great men, but with the will for happiness. Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time. Thats the only problem thats ever interested me. Very specific. Very clear.(...)Oh, I know perfectly well that most rich men have no sense of happiness. But thats not the question. To have money is to have time. Thats my main point. Time can be bought. Everything can be bought. To be or to become rich is to have time to be happy, if you deserve it.

Every time a man (myself) gives way to vanity, every time he thinks and lives in order to show off, this is a betrayal. Every time, it has always been the great misfortune of wanting to show off which has lessened me in the presence of the truth. We do not need to reveal ourselves to others, but only to those we love. For then we are no longer revealing ourselves in order to seem but in order to give. There is much more strength in a man who reveals himself only when it is necessary. I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness. To go right to the end implies knowing how to keep one’s secret. And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown.