Albert Camus Quotes

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. There is no happiness if the things we believe in are different than the things we do. No matter hoq hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger, something better, pushing right back. Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is. Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't. Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray. At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman. Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth. The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears. Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself. Live to the point of tears. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day. I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing. Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable. Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep. Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold. When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. I would rather live my life as if there is a god and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is. Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them. Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter. There is not love of life without despair about life. People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves. When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune. You can't create experience, you undergo it. Peace is the only battle worth waging. Always there comes an hour when one is weary of one's work and devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it. The most important thing you do everyday you live is deciding not to kill yourself.

Albert Camus

1913 - 1960