Quotes by Albert Camus

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to LIllustration. Something desperate, you know.

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. Can they be brought together? This is a practical question. We must get down to it. I despise intelligence really means: I cannot bear my doubts.

Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep

Au milieu de lhiver, jai découvert en moi un invincible été.

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

It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that Id been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.

I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats 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, even war or death.

We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges.

If there were a party of those who arent sure theyre right, Id belong to 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.

No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

There is no fate which cannot be surmounted by scorn.

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

There is but one true philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little connection with such beginnings. The worm is in mans heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight from light.

To stay or to go, it amounted to the same thing.

Do you believe in God, doctor?No - but what does that really mean? Im fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But Ive long ceased finding that original.