Albert Camus Quotes - Page 24

• The first choice an artist makes is precisely to be an artist, and if he chooses to be an artist it is in consideration of what he is himself and because of a certain idea he has of art

  Albert Camus

  Art, Ideas, Choices

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• He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from which I had to free myself. According to him, human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I pointed out it was the former that had condemned me.

  Albert Camus

  Divine Justice, Would Be, Sin

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Stranger”, p.118, Vintage

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• As soon as one does not kill oneself, one must keep silent about life.

  Albert Camus

  Death, Suicide, Silence

  Albert Camus (1963). “Carnets: 1935-1942”

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• The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

  Albert Camus

  Fall, Punishment, Rocks

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.119, Vintage

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• In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced.

  Albert Camus

  Gambling, Luck

  Albert Camus (1948). “The Plague”, Vintage

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• I don't want to represent man as he is, but only as he might be.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Want, Might

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• I was comfortable in all, I admit, but at the same time, nothing satisfied me. Each joy made me seek another.

  Albert Camus

  Joy, Made, Discontent

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• We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.

  Albert Camus

  Blood, Color, Smell

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.189, Vintage

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• A sub-clerk in the post office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them. All experiences are indifferent in this regard. There are some that do either a service or a disservice to man. They do him a service if he is conscious. Otherwise, that has no importance: a man's failures imply judgment, not of circumstances, but of himself.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Office, Clerks

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.68, Vintage

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• And then came human beings; humans wanted to cling but there was nothing to cling to.

  Albert Camus

  Wanted, Humans, Human Beings

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• Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

  Albert Camus

  Artist, Lifetime, Source

  "Pretensions: Adieu, Adieu, Albert Camus" by Joe Queenan, reason.com. March 1990.

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• Knowing what [Christ] knew , knowing all about mankind--ah! who would have thought that the crime is not so much to make others die, but to die oneself--confronted day and night with his innocent crime, it became too difficult to go on. It was better to get it over with, to not defend himself, to die, in order not to be the only one to have survived, and to go elsewhere, where, perhaps, he would be supported.

  Albert Camus

  God, Night, Order

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• Old women even forget how to love their sons. The heart gets worn out, Monsieur.

  Albert Camus

  Heart, Son, How To Love

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• The more I produce, the less I am certain. On the road along which the artist walks, night falls ever more densely. Finally, he dies blind.

  Albert Camus

  Fall, Artist, Night

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• It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the “why” arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.

  Albert Camus

  Friday, Monday, Sleep

  Albert Camus (1955). “The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays”

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• Sometimes, from beyond the skycrapers, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

  Albert Camus

  New York, Insomnia, Islands

  Albert Camus (1987). “American journals”

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• I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

  Albert Camus

  Hate, Wish, Crowds

  Albert Camus (2002). “The Stranger”, Spark Notes

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• What more ghastly image can be called up than that of a man betrayed by his body who, simply because he did not die in time, lives out the comedy while awaiting the end, face to face with that God he does not adore, serving him as he served life, kneeling before a void and arms outstretched toward a heaven without eloquence that he knows to be also without depth?

  Albert Camus

  Men, Heaven, Body

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• I would like to be able to breathe— to be able to love her by memory or fidelity. But my heart aches. I love you continuously, intensely.

  Albert Camus

  Memories, Love You, Heart

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• The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter writer, Sade. The only poet of the times was the guillotine.

  Albert Camus

  Artist, Revolution, Birth

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• For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving.

  Albert Camus

  Love, Luck, Misfortunes

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.201, Vintage

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• Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents

  Albert Camus

  Sacrifice, Vanity, Civilization

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• Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.

  Albert Camus

  Flower, Creating, Anxiety

  Albert Camus (1955). “The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays”

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• Indeed, men never know how to love. nothing satisfies them. All they know is to dream, to imagine new duties, to look for new countries and new homes. While we women, we know that we must hasten to love, to share the same bed, hold hands, and fear absence. When we women love, we dream of nothing.

  Albert Camus

  Love, Dream, Country

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• Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty.

  Albert Camus

  Freedom, Ideas, Liberty

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.102, Vintage

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