Albert Camus

Quotes

  1. "Then we understand that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. Those who find no rest in God or in history are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live; in fact, for the humiliated."

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

    p. 86

  3. Let's not beat around the bush; I love life — that's my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.

  4. Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.

  5. Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man.

  6. A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.

  7. The most elementary form of rebellion, paradoxically, expresses an aspiration for order.

  8. Whatever we may do, excess will always keep its place in the heart of man, in the place where solitude is found. We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.

  9. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

  10. The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.

  11. "In the light, the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die, and which we shall never again postpone to a later time."

  12. "The real saint", Baudelaire pretends to think, "is he who flogs and kills people for their own good." His argument will be heard. A race of real saints is beginning to spread over the earth for the purposes of confirming these curious conclusions about rebellion.