Albert Camus Quotes

French philosopher, author, and journalist (1913–1960)

Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French Pied-Noir author, absurdist philosopher and winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Alternative Names: Camus

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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.

Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write in images instead of arguments.

We all have a weakness for beauty.

Manhattan. Sometimes from beyond the skyscrapers, across of thousands of high walls, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia in the middle of the night, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. It would be easy, however, to destroy that good conscience by shouting to them: if you want the happiness of the people, let them speak out and tell what kind of happiness they want and what kind they don't want! But, in truth, the very ones who make use of such alibis know they are lies; they leave to their intellectuals on duty the chore of believing in them and of proving that religion, patriotism, and justice need for their survival the sacrifice of freedom.

I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?

When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. ... there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

A punishment that penalizes without forestalling is indeed called revenge.

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life.

The essential is to cease being free and to obey, in repentance, a greater rogue than oneself. When we are all guilty, that will be democracy.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question.

Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. <small> QOTD 2007·11·07 Sound file </small>

N'attendez pas le Jugement dernier. Il a lieu tous les jours.