Albert Camus
There is only one class of men, the privileged classCollection: Men
After another moment's silence she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might disgust her for the very same reason.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Memories
Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.Collection: Happiness
There are plagues, and there are victims, and it's the duty of good men not to join forces with the plagues.Collection: Men
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?Collection: Men
We must learn how to lend ourselves to dreaming when dreams lend themselves to us.Collection: Dream
I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being boredCollection: Memories
...the play of the toughest and most lucid mind are at the same time both lavished andsquandered.Collection: Play
On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.Collection: Real
Ironic philosophies produce passionate works.Collection: Philosophy
Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. 'But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.' And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten-- since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably.Collection: Men
It is natural to give a clear view of the world after accepting the idea that it must be clear.Collection: Views
Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals.Collection: Dream
The world I live in is loathsome to me, but I feel one with the men who suffer in itCollection: Men
Tout re volutionnaire finit en oppresseur ou en he re tique. Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.Collection: Revolutionary
Utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality.Collection: Reality
A writer cannot put himself today in service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it.Collection: Writing
A liking for truth at any cost is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing resists. It's a vice, at times a comfort, or a selfishness.Collection: Selfish
I conceived at least one great love in my life, of which I was always the object.Collection: Love
And real nobility (that of the heart) is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.Collection: Real
Absurd- that is the light mind that establishes its own borders.Collection: Light
What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?Collection: Real
Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics.Collection: War
Men die and they are not happy.Collection: Life
He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.Collection: Men
No, Father, I've a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.Collection: Children
In truth, I was so good at being a man, with such plenitude and simplicity, that I thought I was something of a superman.Collection: Men
On good days, if you trust life, life has to answer you.Collection: Good Day
In the world today, only a philosophy of eternity could justify non-violence.Collection: Philosophy
So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time.Collection: Men
In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips.Collection: Art
Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject.Collection: Feelings
Moreover, most people, assuming they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not combine them naively with a thoroughly immoral way of living, had replace normal religious practice by more or less extravagant superstitions.Collection: Religious
The revolutionary government was required to become the government of the war.Collection: War
You will always win if you make an effort, no matter how much. However, if you failed it means you were too lazy.Collection: Mean
The great courage is to stare as squarely at the light as at death.Collection: Light
After a short silence the doctor raised himself a little in his chair and asked if Tarrou had an idea of the path to follow for attaining peace. "Yes, he replied. "The path of sympathy.Collection: Doctors
No doubt our love was still there, but quite simply it was unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. It was no longer anything except a patience with no future and a stubborn wait.Collection: Waiting
That's the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he can't love without self-love.Collection: Men
I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having oneCollection: Believe
The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action.Collection: Hero
What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear... in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man.Collection: Christian
Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose a future.Collection: Relationship
And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.Collection: Doors
I have not stopped loving that which is sacred in this world.Collection: Happiness And Love
From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.Collection: Power
I like these people swarming on the sidewalks, wedged into a little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs, cold lands, and the sea streaming like a wet wash. I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.Collection: Space
I want to know if I can live with what I know, and only than.Collection: Want