Albert Camus Quotes - Page 28

• Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.

  Albert Camus

  Children, Men, Perfect

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.303, Vintage

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• The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable.

  Albert Camus

  Crush, Heart, Fate

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

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• A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

  Albert Camus

  Writing, Character, May

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.37, Vintage

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• Something must happen; that is the reason for most human relationships. Something must happen; even servitude in love, in war, ordeath.

  Albert Camus

  War, Boredom, Slavery

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• I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor".

  Albert Camus

  Hypocrisy, House, Labels

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• Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

  Albert Camus

  Self Worth, Men, Greek

  "The Rebel". Book by Albert Camus, 1951.

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• No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all.

  Albert Camus

  Destiny, Emotion, Individual

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

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• Nothing is given to mankind and what little men can conquer must be paid for with unjust death. But man's grandeur lies elsewhere, in his decision to rise above his condition.

  Albert Camus

  Lying, Men, Decision

  Albert Camus (2007). “Camus at Combat: Writing 1944-1947”, p.18, Princeton University Press

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• On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but I remembered just in time that I'd killed a man.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Hands, Way

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• For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.

  Albert Camus

  Greatness, Echoes, Humanity

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.276, Vintage

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• There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom insight and life of each person who has known and loved it.

  Albert Camus

  Art, Ends, Insight

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• Whereas the Greeks gave to will the boundaries of reason, we have come to put the will's impulse in the very center of reason, which has, as a result, become deadly.

  Albert Camus

  Greek, Free Will, Boundaries

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.190, Vintage

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• I'd buy myself a cabin on the beach, I'd put some glue in my navel, and I'd stick a flag in there. Then I'd wait to see which way the wind was blowing.

  Albert Camus

  Beach, Wind, Waiting

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• There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.

  Albert Camus

  Country, Mean, Greatness

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.5, Vintage

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• A man who has become conscious of the absurd is for ever bound to it.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Absurd, Conscious

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

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• You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Science, Technology

  Albert Camus (1963). “Notebooks”

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• ...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men I’ve seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." "Obviously," I replied, "they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it." I, however, didn’t want to be helped, and I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Liberty, Want

  Albert Camus (2016). “The Stranger”, p.51, Hamilton Books

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• Only the sea, murmurous behind the dingy checkerboard of houses, told of the unrest, the precariousness, of all things in this world.

  Albert Camus

  Sea, House, Unrest

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

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• Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

  Albert Camus

  Solitude, Violence, Working Conditions

  Albert Camus, Jean Grenier (2003). “Correspondence, 1932-1960”, p.195, U of Nebraska Press

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• Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.

  Albert Camus

  Relationship, Positive, Future

  Albert Camus (1963). “Carnets: 1942-1951”

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• If only nature is real and if, in nature, only desire and destruction are legitimate, then, in that all humanity does not suffice to assuage the thirst for blood, the path of destruction must lead to universal annihilation.

  Albert Camus

  Nature, Real, Blood

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.44, Vintage

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• Beware of those who say: "I know this too well to be able to express it." For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.

  Albert Camus

  Atheism, Laziness, Able

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• 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 I'd 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.

  Albert Camus

  Lonely, Stars, Philosophy

  L'Etranger (The Stranger) pt. 2, ch. 5 (1942)

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• Modern conquerors can kill, but do not seem to be able to create. Artists know how to create but cannot really kill. Murderers are only very exceptionally found among artists.

  Albert Camus

  Artist, Able, Modern

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.275, Vintage

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• maybe she had become tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also occured to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These things happen. [...] Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing to me. That seemed perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead.

  Albert Camus

  Girlfriend, Tired, Men

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