Quotes from Albert Camus

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.

I cannot stand the company of men. They flatter or they judge. I can stand neither of the two.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

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.

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.

The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

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.

Only a philosophy of eternity, in the world today, could justify non-violence.

We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.

Ah! my friend, for whomever is alone, without a god and without a master, the weight of time is terrible. One must then choose a master, God being out of style.

I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead. I couldn't even say that this was hard to stomach; really, there's no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized in time.

I was comfortable in all, I admit, but at the same time, nothing satisfied me. Each joy made me seek another.

...the play of the toughest and most lucid mind are at the same time both lavished andsquandered.

Likewise, every time somebody interjects to speak of my honesty there is someone who quivers inside me.

... I suppose that it is not so easy to go home and it takes a bit of time to make a son out of a stranger.

he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while.

At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead.

The literal meaning of life is whatever you're doing that prevents you from killing yourself.

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.

Whoever gives nothing, has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love.

The Four Conditions of Happiness: Life in the open air, Love for another being,Freedom from ambition,Creation

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