Albert Camus

Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth

For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.

I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.

Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.

Today we are always as ready to judge as we are to fornicate.

I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears as soon as there is an excess of things.

I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.

All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can't judge if it's simple, but I know it's true.

…there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is - common decency.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.

The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.

Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though a 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.

...the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.