Albert Camus Quotes - Page 27

• The act of love . . . is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

  Albert Camus

  Love, Selfish, Vanity

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.65, Vintage

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• But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long.

  Albert Camus

  Distance, Long, People

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.114, Vintage

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• Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.

  Albert Camus

  Believe, Doubt, Fields

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.10, Vintage

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• Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down... There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.

  Albert Camus

  Attitude, Fighting, Giving

  Albert Camus (1960). “The plague: translated from the French”

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• In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.

  Albert Camus

  Dream, Taken, Men

  ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

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• …. Query: How contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting-room; by remaining on one's balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language on doesn't know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.

  Albert Camus

  Sunday, Waiting Rooms, Office

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Plague”, p.26, Vintage

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• There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

  Albert Camus

  Integrity, People, Needs

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.66, Vintage

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• The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to.

  Albert Camus

  Absurd

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.31, Vintage

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• We [Raymond and Meursault] stared at each other without blinking, and everything came to a stop there between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot.

  Albert Camus

  Sea, Water, Silence

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• Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.

  Albert Camus

  Reality, Our World, Uprising

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.247, Vintage

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• When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though a war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

  Albert Camus

  War, Stupid, Long

  Albert Camus (1960). “Collected fiction”

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• These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.

  Albert Camus

  Heart, Facts, Study

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.3, Vintage

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• It should be pointed out for our own guidance in the West that the continual signing of manifestoes and protests is one of the surest ways of undermining the efficacy and dignity of the intellectual. There exists a permanent blackmail that we all know and that we must have the often solitary courage to resist.

  Albert Camus

  Intellectual, Way, West

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.170, Vintage

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• Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.

  Albert Camus

  Elements, Unreality, Abstraction

  "The Plague". Book by Albert Camus, 1947.

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• Men like us are good and proud and strong...if we had a faith, a God, nothing could undermine us. But we had nothing, we had to learn everything, and living for honor alone has its weaknesses.

  Albert Camus

  Strong, Men, Honor

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• If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

  Albert Camus

  Optimistic, Destiny, Men

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.73, Vintage

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• From Pandora's Box, where all the ills of humanity swarmed, the Greeks drew out hope after all the others, as the most dreadful of all. I know no more stirring symbol; for, contrary to the general belief, hope equals resignation. And to live is not to resign oneself.

  Albert Camus

  Greek, Humanity, Pandora's Box

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.153, Vintage

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• It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.

  Albert Camus

  Drama, Tragedy, Spain

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• 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. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.

  Albert Camus

  Retirement, Moving, Next Move

  Albert Camus (2012). “Happy Death”, p.82, Vintage

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• At the age of 40, having ordered meat very rare in restaurants all his life, he realized he actually liked it medium and not at all rare.

  Albert Camus

  Age, Meat, Restaurants

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• In a universe suddenly divested of illusion and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.

  Albert Camus

  Memories, Fear, Home

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.6, Vintage

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• I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

  Albert Camus

  Philosophy, Thinking, Telling The Truth

  "Resistance, Rebellion, and Death" by Albert Camus, "Pessimism and Tyranny", 1960.

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• We know the surrealist solution: concrete irrationality, objective risk. Poetry is the conquest, the only possible conquest, of the 'supreme position', 'a certain position of the mind from where life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future... cease to be perceived in a contradictory sense.'

  Albert Camus

  Real, Past, Life And Death

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.97, Vintage

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• But do you know why we are always more just and generous toward the dead? The reason is simple. With them there is no obligation. They leave us free and we can take our time, fit the testimonial between a cocktail party and a nice little mistress, in our spare time, in short.

  Albert Camus

  Nice, Party, Simple

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Fall”, p.33, Vintage

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• Because,' Cormery went on, 'when I was very young, very foolish, and very much alone ... you paid attention to me and, without seeming to, you opened for me the door to everything I love in the world.

  Albert Camus

  Doors, Attention, World

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