Albert Camus: Trending quotes

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Albert Camus: 418 quotes35 likes

“When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.”

Albert Camus book The Plague

The Plague (1947)

“Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning

“If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 18

“I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.”

Albert Camus book Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

"Pessimism and Tyranny"
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1960)

“Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“He tried to recall what he had read about the disease. Figures floated across his memory, and he recalled that some thirty or so great plagues known to history had accounted for nearly a hundred million deaths. But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one actually sees him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination.”

Albert Camus book The Plague

The Plague (1947)

“The words that reverberate for us at the confines of this long adventure of rebellion are not formulas for optimism, for which we have no possible use in the extremities of our unhappiness, but words of courage and intelligence which, on the shores of the eternal seas, even have the qualities of virtue.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning, p. 170

“A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.”

Albert Camus

"The Failing of Prophecy" in Existentialism Versus Marxism : Conflicting Views on Humanism (1966) by George Edward Novack

“One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.”

Albert Camus book The Stranger

Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.
First sentences of the book; some translations retain the original Maman.
The Stranger (1942)

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Source: The Rebel (1951), Chapter 1

“It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm — this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning

“To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), An Absurd Reasoning

“No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.”

Albert Camus book Reflections on the Guillotine

Reflections on the Guillotine (1957)

“The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)