Quotes By Albert Camus

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

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

Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

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

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

To abandon oneself to principles is really to die - and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

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

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

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.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn't everything.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.