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Albert Camus Quotes and Quotations
I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgement, it takes place every day. The struggle to the top is in itself enough to fulfill the human heart. Sisyphus should be regarded as happy. Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is and what he says and when the source dries up the work withers and crumbles. 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. Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. As a remedy to life in society, I would suggest the big city. Nowadays it is the only desert within our reach. Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. We rarely confide in those who are better than we are. The innocent is the person who explains nothing. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn. If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another, and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. Love cannot accept what it is. Everywhere on earth it cries out against kindness, compassion, intelligence, everything that leads to compromise. Love demands the impossible, the absolute, the sky on fire, inexhaustible springtime, life after death, and death itself transfigured into eternal life. In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. An intense feeling carries with it its own universe, magnificent or wretched as the case may be. Politics, and the fate of mankind, are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. To know oneself, one should assert oneself. We call first truths those we discover after all the others. I know myself too well to believe in pure virtue. There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted. To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art. But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another, and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves. To know oneself, one should assert oneself. At thirty a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities. ... And above all, accept these things. If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one. Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eter1nal youth. Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. Life is the sum of all your choices. At thirty a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities. ... And, above all, accept these things. This is the century of fear. Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. We are not certain, we are never certain. Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worst. Psychology is action, not thinking about oneself. If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one. Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worst. There is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads. In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. We rarely confide in those who are better than we are. |