Albert Camus Quotes - Page 2

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.

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.

Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true, and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels.

False judges are held up in the world’s admiration and I alone know the true ones.

What I believe to be true I must therefore preserve. What seems to me so obvious, even against me, I must support.

What we call fundamental truths are simply the ones we discover after all the others.

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

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep

Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été.

The evil that is in the world almost always comes from ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

If there were a party of those who aren't sure they're right, I'd belong to it.
~(Camus, as quoted by Tony Judt)

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.

No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

There is no fate which cannot be surmounted by scorn.

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

There is but one true philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little connection with such beginnings. The worm is in man's heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight from light.

Do you believe in God, doctor?"

No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.