Albert Camus Quotes

“O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”
― Albert Camus, L’été

“Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep”
― Albert Camus

“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“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.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

“The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.”
― Albert Camus

“I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.”
― Albert Camus

“ترجیح میدهم طوری زندگی کنم که گویی خدا هست و وقتی مُردم بفهمم نیست، تا اینکه طوری زندگی کنم که انگار خدا نیست و وقتی مُردم بفهمم که هست.”
― آلبر کامو

“To create is to live twice.”
― Albert Camus

“It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning”
― Albert Camus

“It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.”
― Albert Camus

“My soul’s a burden to me, I’ve had enough of it. I’m eager to be in that country, where the sun kills every question. I don’t belong here.”
― Albert Camus

“We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.”
― Albert Camus

“How unbearable, for women, is the tenderness which a man can give them without love. For men, how bittersweet this is.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942

“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." - Grant”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.”
― Albert Camus

“And I fired four more times at a lifeless body and the bullets sank in without leaving a mark. And it was like giving four sharp knocks at the door of unhappiness.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“Despite men's suffering, despite the blood and wrath, despite the dead who can never be replaced, the unjust wounds, and the wild bullets, we must utter, not words of regret, but words of hope, of the dreadful hope of men isolated with their fate.”
― Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion and Death: Essays

“Plus je vieillis et plus je trouve qu’on ne peut vivre qu’avec les êtres qui vous libèrent, qui vous aiment d’une affection aussi légère à porter que forte à éprouver. La vie d’aujourd’hui est trop dure, trop amère, trop anémiante, pour qu’on subisse encore de nouvelles servitudes, venues de qui on aime [...]. C’est ainsi que je suis votre ami, j’aime votre bonheur, votre liberté, votre aventure en un mot, et je voudrais être pour vous le compagnon dont on est sûr, toujours.

The older I get, the more I find that you can only live with those who free you, who love you from a lighter affection to bear as strong as you can to experience Today's life is too hard, too bitter, too anemic, for us to undergo new bondages, from whom we love [...]. This is how I am your friend, I love your happiness, your freedom, Your adventure in one word, and I would like to be for you the companion we are sure of, always.

---- Albert Camus à René Char, 17 septembre 1957 (in "Albert Camus - René Char : Correspondance 1946-1959")
---- Albert Camus to René Char, September 17, 1957 (via René Char)”
― Albert Camus, Correspondance

“I was at ease in everything, to be sure, but at the same time satisfied with nothing. Each joy made me desire another. I went from festivity to festivity. On occasion I danced for nights on end, ever madder about people and life. At times, late on those nights when the dancing, the slight intoxication, my wild enthusiasm, everyone’s violent unrestraint would fill me with a tired and overwhelmed rapture, it would seem to me—at the breaking point of fatigue and for a second’s flash—that at last I understood the secret; I would rush forth anew. I ran on like that, always heaped with favors, never satiated, without knowing where to stop, until the day -- until the evening rather when the music stopped and the lights went out.”
― The Fall

“Ah ! cher ami, que les hommes sont pauvres en invention. Ils croient toujours qu'on se suicide pour une raison. Mais on peut très bien se suicider pour deux raisons. Non, ça ne leur entre pas dans la tête. Alors, à quoi bon mourir volontairement, se sacrifier à l'idée qu'on veut donner de soi ? Vous mort, ils en profiteront pour donner à votre geste des motifs idiots, ou vulgaires. Les martyrs, cher ami, doivent choisir d'être oubliés, raillés ou utilisés. Quant à être compris, jamais.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“To will is to stir up paradoxes”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Tekerlekler üzerinde kayan zindanımın karanlığ��nda, yorgunluğumun ta derinliklerinden gelişmişçesine, sevdiğim bir kentin, kendimi mutlu hissettiğim belli bir saatin bütün bu alışılmış gürültülerini eskisi gibi, bir bir bulur gibi oldum. Gerginliğini yitiren havada, gazete satıcılarının sesi, küçük parktaki son kuşların ötüşü, sandviç satıcılarının bağrışması, kentin yüksek dönemeçlerinde tramvayların çıkardığı iniltili gıcırtılar ve göğün daha gece limanın üzerine çökmeden önceki uğultusu, bütün bunlar benim için cezaevine düşmeden önce bildiğim gözü kapalı bir gezintiyi düzenliyordu. Evet, bu saat, bundan çok zaman önceleri, kendimi mutlu hissettiğim bir saatti. Beni o zamanlar bekleyen hep hafif ve deliksiz bir uykuydu. Ama yine de bir şeyler değişmişti. Yarını gözlerken kendimi yeniden hücremde buluverdim. Yaz göklerinde uzanıp giden o bildik yollar insanı günahsız uykulara da zindanlara da götürebiliyormuş demek. ”
― Albert Camus

“Böyle işte, dünyanın derin anlamını duyar gibi olduğum her seferde, onun basitliği şaşırttı hep beni.”
― Albert Camus, Tersi ve Yüzü

“Albert Camus said of the Spanish struggle: It is now nine years that men of my generation have had Spain within their hearts. Nine years that they have carried it with them like an evil wound. It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many men, the world over, regard the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.”
― Stuart Christie, My Granny Made Me an Anarchist. The Christie File: Part 1, 1946 - 1964

“My reflection seemed to remain serious even though I was trying to smile at it. I moved the plate around in front of me. I smiled and it still had the same sad, stern expression.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

“What did Albert Camus say? It's not one thing or the other that leads to madness; it's the space in between them.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Night Side of the River

“Manchmal stürzen die Kulissen ein. Aufstehen, Straßenbahn, vier Stunden Büro oder Fabrik, Essen, Straßenbahn, vier Stunden Arbeit, Essen, Schlafen, Montag, Dienstag, Mittwoch, Donnerstag, Freitag, Samstag, immer derselbe Rhythmus - das ist meist ein bequemer Weg. Eines Tages aber erhebt sich das »Warum«, und mit diesem Überdruss, in den sich Erstaunen mischt, fängt alles an. »Fängt an« - das ist wichtig. Der Überdruss steht am Ende der Handlungen eines mechanischen Lebens, gleichzeitig leitet er aber auch eine Bewusstseinserregung ein. Er weckt das Bewusstsein und fordert den nächsten Schritt heraus. Der nächste Schritt ist die unbewusste Rückkehr in die Kette oder das endgültige Erwachen. Schließlich führt dieses Erwachen mit der Zeit zur Entscheidung: Selbstmord oder Wiederherstellung. An sich hat der Überdruss etwas Widerwärtiges. Hier jedoch muss ich den Schluss ziehen, dass er gut ist. Denn mit dem Bewusstsein fängt alles an, und nur durch das Bewusstsein hat etwas Wert.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Ni siquiera tenía certeza de estar vivo, ya que vivía como un muerto. Yo parecía que tenía las manos vacías. Pero estaba seguro de mí, seguro de todo, más seguro que él, seguro de mí vida y de esta muerte que iba a llegar.”
― Albert Camus, EL EXTRANJERO.

“Everything is burning, my soul, body, outside, inside, heart, flesh… Do you understand? Do you really understand?”
― María Casares

“Can this be happiness, this terrifying freedom?”
― Albert Camus