Albert Camus Quotes - Page 28

• Modern conquerors can kill, but do not seem to be able to create. Artists know how to create but cannot really kill. Murderers are only very exceptionally found among artists.

  Albert Camus

  Artist, Able, Modern

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.275, Vintage

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• The world expects of Christians that they will raise their voices so loudly and clearly and so formulate their protest that not even the simplest man can have the slightest doubt about what they are saying. Further, the world expects of Christians that they will eschew all fuzzy abstractions and plant themselves squarely in front of the bloody face of history. We stand in need of folk who have determined to speak directly and unmistakably and come what may, to stand by what they have said.

  Albert Camus

  Christian, Religious, Men

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• If pimps and thieves everywhere were always punished, honest people would all believe themselves always to be innocent.

  Albert Camus

  Believe, People, Justice

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• Whoever today speaks of human existence in terms of power, efficiency, and historical tasks is an actual or potential assassin.

  Albert Camus

  Power, Historical, Tasks

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• And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from.

  Albert Camus

  Art, Fate, Differences

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• The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

  Albert Camus

  Intellectual, Roles, Violence

  Albert Camus (2013). “Algerian Chronicles”, p.28, Harvard University Press

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• ... here, where the gaze is stopped everywhere, the whole earth is designed so that the face turns upward and the gaze implores. Oh! I hate this world where we are reduced to God.

  Albert Camus

  God, Prayer, Hate

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• But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is one of knowing whether two and two do make four

  Albert Camus

  Men, Two, Knowing

  Albert Camus (1948). “The Plague”, Vintage

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• The first concern of any dictatorship is, consequently, to subjugate both labor and culture.

  Albert Camus

  Culture, Firsts, Dictatorship

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.95, Vintage

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• It is better for the intellectual not to talk all the time. To begin with, it would exhaust him, and, above all, it would keep him from thinking. He must create if he can, first and foremost, especially if his creation does not side-step the problems of his time.

  Albert Camus

  Thinking, Intellectual, Doe

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• ... man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not mean different, it means unified... Religion or crime, every human endeavor in fact, finally obeys this unreasonabledesire and claims to give life a form it does not have.

  Albert Camus

  Mean, Men, Ideas

  Albert Camus (1957). “the Rebel”

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• The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their very duration great misfortunes are monotonous.

  Albert Camus

  Pestilence, Duration, Truth Is

  Albert Camus (1960). “Collected fiction”

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• he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while.

  Albert Camus

  Mean, Long, Suffering

  ALBERT CAMUS (1971). “NOBEL PRIZE LIBRARY”

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• 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.

  Albert Camus

  Men, Law, Trying

  Albert Camus (2012). “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays”, p.190, Vintage

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• In fact, other people create for lack of power. I, on the other hand, do not need a work: I live.

  Albert Camus

  Life, Creativity, Power

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• There is but one freedom, to put oneself right with death. After that everything is possible.

  Albert Camus

  Death, Oneself

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• How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.

  Albert Camus

  Integrity, Law, Justice

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• I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.

  Albert Camus

  Feelings, Needs, Way

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Stranger”, p.65, Vintage

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• The spirit of rebellion can only exist in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion, therefore, has no meaning except within our own Western society.

  Albert Camus

  Spirit, Problem, Rebellion

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.20, Vintage

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• By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

  Albert Camus

  Powerful, Men, Evil

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• Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.

  Albert Camus

  Philosophy, Men, Prey

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.31, Vintage

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• Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.

  Albert Camus

  Sky, Indifference

  Albert Camus (1948). “The Plague”, Vintage

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• It is not rebellion itself which is noble but the demands it makes upon us.

  Albert Camus

  Noble, Demand, Rebellion

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

  Albert Camus

  War, Clouds, Storm

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.275, Vintage

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• Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

  Albert Camus

  Love, Men, Precious Stones

  Albert Camus (1972). “The Plague”, eBookEden.com

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