Albert Camus: Trending quotes (page 10)

“Of course, I had to own that he was right; I didn't feel much regret for what I'd done. Still, to my mind, he overdid it, and I'd have liked to have a chance of explaining to him, in a quite friendly, almost affectionate way, that I have never been able to really regret anything in all my life. I've always been far too much absorbed in the present moment, or the immediate future, to think back.”

Albert Camus book The Stranger

The Stranger (1942)

Life , Way , Feeling , Thinking

“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Kirilov
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation

God

“"My field," said Goethe, "is time." That is indeed the absurd speech. What, in fact, is the Absurd Man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Absurd Man

Courage , Nostalgia , Freedom , Time

“I rebel — therefore we exist.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.”

Albert Camus

Pauvre et libre plutôt que riche et asservi. Bien entendu les hommes veulent être et riches et libres et c’est ce qui les conduit quelquefois à être pauvres et esclaves.
Notebooks (1942–1951)

Men , Time

“Art is the activity that exalts and denies simultaneously. "No artist tolerates reality," says Nietzsche.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

Art , Reality

“Martyrs must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood—never!”

Albert Camus book The Fall

The Fall (1956)

“Every rebellion implies some kind of unity.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

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

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Introduction
The Rebel (1951)

Deep , For Men

“The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning

Way , Thinking

“It's better to bet on this life than on the next.”

Albert Camus book A Happy Death

A Happy Death (1971)

Life

“This was her finest role and the hardest one to play. Choosing between heaven and a ridiculous fidelity, preferring oneself to eternity or losing oneself in God is the age-old tragedy in which each must play his part.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 83

God , Age , Parting

“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.”

Albert Camus book A Happy Death

Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage.
A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)
Variant: He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

Love , People

“Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write in images instead of arguments.”

Albert Camus

This may have arisen as a paraphrase of statements found in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), "An Absurd Reasoning", or one found in The Novelist as Philosopher: Studies in French Fiction 1935-1960 (1962) edited by John Cruikshank, p. 218
Disputed

“The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think.”

Albert Camus book The Plague

The Plague (1947)

Thinking

“Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.”

Albert Camus book The Fall

Variant translations: I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
Do not await the last Judgement. It takes place everyday.
You needn't await the Final Judgment. It takes place every day.
The Fall (1956)

Waiting

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

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion; also quoted in Albert Camus : The Invincible Summer (1958) by Albert Maquet, p. 86; a remark made about the Marquis de Sade
The Rebel (1951)

“Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

"Historical Murder", as translated by Anthony Bower
The Rebel (1951)

Justice , Idea , Freedom

“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”

Albert Camus

Notebooks (1942–1951)

“Life continues, and some mornings, weary of the noise, discouraged by the prospect of the interminable work to keep after, sickened also by the madness of the world that leaps at you from the newspaper, finally convinced that I will not be equal to it and that I will disappoint everyone—all I want to do is sit down and wait for evening. This is what I feel like, and sometimes I yield to it.”

Albert Camus

"Letter to P.B." in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)

Life , World , Disappointment , Feeling