Albert Camus Quotes and its meanings

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

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

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

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

Without freedom, no art art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

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.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

Dont walk behind me; I may not lead. Dont walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

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

Without freedom, no art art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

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

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.

How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

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

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

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.

We turn toward God only to obtain the impossible.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

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

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.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

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.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn't everything.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

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

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

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches 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.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

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.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

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.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

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.

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

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

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

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

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Blessed are the hearts that can bend they shall never be broken.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

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

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

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

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

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

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.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

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.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

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.

To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.

How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

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

Dont walk behind me; I may not lead. Dont walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.