Quotes by Albert Camus

by

A collection of the most quoted words and lines from French novelist Albert Camus exploring the absurdity and contradictions of human existence.

Best Albert Camus Quotes

Best Albert Camus Quotes

Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright.

Camus is perhaps best known for his philosophical essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” in which he explores the idea of the absurdity of human existence and the need to find meaning and purpose in life despite this absurdity.

He also wrote several novels, including “The Stranger” and “The Plague,” which explored similar themes of existentialism, human isolation, and the struggle to find meaning in life.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal

Famous Quotes By Albert Camus

The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.

I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on God.

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

Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self.

Any thought that abandons unity glorifies diversity. And diversity is the home of art

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

O light! This the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.

Quotes From Albert Camus

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

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

If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.

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.

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken

I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.

Distinguish melancholy from sadness

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards.

Well Known Quotes Albert Camus

The most important thing you do everyday you live is deciding not to kill yourself.

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

I rebel — therefore we exist.

Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years.

People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

There is not love of life without despair about life.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

The need to be always right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.

Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other.

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.

Fate is not in man but around him.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.

We have exiled beauty; the Greeks took up arms for her.

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.

Life is meaningless, but worth living, provided you recognize it’s meaningless.

If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth.

I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn’t capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.

If the world were clear, art would not exist.

Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.

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

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.

Without beauty, love, or danger it would be almost easy to live.

The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.

The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.

Having money is a way of being free of money.

It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.

The opposite of an idealist is too often a man without love.

Idleness is only fatal to the mediocre.

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

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

A man is more a man through the things he keeps to himself than through those he says.

Life should be lived to the point of tears.

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

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.

There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

More Most Quoted Collections