Albert Camus Quotes

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.

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

Nobody raises his reputation by lowering others.

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

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.

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

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. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

Whoever gives nothing, has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love.

Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement.

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.

Life is a sum of all your choices". So, what are you doing today?

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.

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

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

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

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

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

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

The modern mind is in complete disarray.

Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.

Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement.

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

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

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

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

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

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.

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

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

You will never be able to experience everything.

So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.

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

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

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.

To abandon oneself to principles is really to die - and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.

There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined.

There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action.

This is called becoming a man.

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

But it's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. But people don't love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me, only I couldn't.

I rebel; therefore I exist.

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

Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.

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.

In that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself--like a brother, really--I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.

Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.

If the world were clear, art would not exist.