Quotes from Albert Camus

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

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

It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us.

Live to the point of tears.

For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still.

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.

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

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom a press will never be anything but bad.

A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

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

I'll tell you a big secret, my friend: Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.

The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy.

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

Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.