Albert Camus quotes

edits filters view all 58 quotes

“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“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.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Without memories, without hope, they lived for the moment only.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“I have a very old and very faithful attachment for dogs. I like them because they always forgive.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“if there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love. And that's my point; we, mankind, have lost the capacity for love.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned it can be murderous. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Only the sea, murmurous behind the dingy checkerboard of houses, told of the unrest, the precariousness, of all things in this world.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth, in other words, to silence.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“At Oran, as elsewhere, for lack of time and thinking, people have to love one another without knowing much about it.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“They were assured, of course, of the inerrable equality of death, but nobody wanted that kind of equality.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Perhaps it was more painful to think of a guilty man than of a dead man.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering?” Albert Camus, The Plague

“what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“One always finds one's burden again.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“At any streetcorner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Today we are always ready to judge as we are to fornicate.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“But weariness is a kind of madness. And there are times when the only feeling I have is one of mad revolt.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“not taking what one doesn’t desire is the hardest thing in the world.” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“I know now that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of a great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“There is scarcely any passion without struggle.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Stupidity has a knack of getting its way” Albert Camus, The Plague

“Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed!” Albert Camus, The Fall

“That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of righting a plague is, common decency.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their very duration great misfortunes are monotonous.” Albert Camus, The Plague

“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures” Albert Camus, The Fall

“Perhaps the easiest way of making a town's acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.” Albert Camus, The Plague

view all 58 quotes

Related sources

The Plague (30)
The Myth of Sisyphus (13)
The Fall (14)
The Stranger (1)

Albert Camus quotes

Related topics

Related sources