Albert Camus Quotes
Albert Camus was a 20th-century French philosopher, novelist, and journalist, born in French Algeria, who developed the philosophical position known as absurdism. His 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus opens with the claim that there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, that of suicide, and proposes a defiant embrace of life in the face of its apparent meaninglessness. The quotes below are attributed to Albert Camus, organized by topic.
Browse Albert Camus by topic
Albert Camus on Death
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“Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to society ," but: "They are going to cut off his head." It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference. And then there are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye .”
Entre oui et non" in L'Envers et l'endroit (1937), translated as "Between Yes and No", in World Review magazine (March 1950), also quoted in The Artist and Political Vision (1982) by Benjamin R. Barber and Michael J. Gargas McGrath -
“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)”
Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage.
Albert Camus on Freedom
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“I rebel; therefore we exist.”
The Rebel (L'Homme Revolte), 1951 -
“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”
Chapter 1 -
“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”
Absurd Creation | Kirilov
Albert Camus on God
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“Those who need myths are indeed poor. Here the gods serve as beds or resting places as the day races across the sky.”
Nuptials (essays)(1938) | "Noces à Tipasa"
Albert Camus on Happiness
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“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Original French: La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. | Variant translation: The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man; it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy. -
“Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.”
Absurd Creation -
“Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness , too, is a long patience .”
A Happy Death(written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author's death))
Albert Camus on Justice
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“Absolute freedom mocks at justice . Absolute justice denies freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits in each other.”
The Rebel(1951) | "Historical Murder", as translated by Anthony Bower -
“Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed, but in every case it is someone else's blood. That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything.”
Actuelles I, 1950 -
“The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.”
The Rebel(1951)
Albert Camus on Knowledge
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“Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage.”
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972) -
“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. And in a good novel, the whole of the philosophy has passed into the images. But if once the philosophy overflows the characters and action, and therefore looks like a label stuck on the work, the plot loses its authenticity and the novel its life. Nevertheless, a work that is to last cannot dispense with profound ideas. And this secret f”
Review of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre , published in the newspaper Alger Républicain (20 October 1938), p. 5; reprinted in Selected Essays and Notebooks , translated and edited by Philip Thody -
“It is the failing of a certain literature to believe that life is tragic because it is wretched. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming — that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty , love , or danger it would be almost easy to live. And M. Sartre's hero does not perhaps give us the real meaning of his anguish when he insists on those aspects of man he finds repugnant, instead of basing his reason”
Review of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre , published in the newspaper Alger Républicain (20 October 1938), p. 5; also quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd (2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 43 -
“We have exiled beauty ; the Greeks took up arms for her.”
Helen's Exile" (1948) -
“Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.”
The Myth of Sisyphus(1942) | "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka " -
“With the exception of professional rationalists, today people despair of true knowledge. If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be history of its successive regrets and impotences.”
An Absurd Reasoning | Absurd Walls -
“"What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?" "I don't know. My... my code of morals, perhaps." "Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?" "Comprehension."”
The Plague(1947)
Albert Camus on Life
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“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”
Original French: La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. | Variant translation: The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man; it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy. -
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
Notebooks 1935-1942 -
Attributed to Albert Camus:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
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Attributed to Albert Camus:
“Live to the point of tears.”
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“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. And in a good novel, the whole of the philosophy has passed into the images. But if once the philosophy overflows the characters and action, and therefore looks like a label stuck on the work, the plot loses its authenticity and the novel its life. Nevertheless, a work that is to last cannot dispense with profound ideas. And this secret fusion between experiences and ideas, between life and reflection on the meaning of life, is what makes the great novelist.”
Review of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre , published in the newspaper Alger Républicain (20 October 1938), p. 5; reprinted in Selected Essays and Notebooks , translated and edited by Philip Thody -
“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.”
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death(1960) | "The Artist and His Time" -
“If there is a sin against life , it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”
"Summer in Algiers" , The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1955) -
“It takes time to live. Like any work of art , life needs to be thought about.”
A Happy Death(written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author's death))
Albert Camus on Love
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Attributed to Albert Camus:
“In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.”
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“In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.”
The Plague(1947) -
“No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.”
The Rebel(1951) | Part 4: Rebellion and Art -
“Let's not beat around the bush; I love life — that's my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.”
The Fall(1956) -
“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.”
A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972) -
“Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory...Everything is forgotten, even great love.”
A Happy Death(written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author's death))
Albert Camus on Mind
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“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
O light ! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer .
Albert Camus on Nature
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“Entre oui et non" in L'Envers et l'endroit (1937), translated as "Between Yes and No", in World Review magazine (March 1950), also quoted in The Artist and Political Vision (1982) by Benjamin R. Barber and Michael J. Gargas McGrath”
Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to society ," but: "They are going to cut off his head." It looks like nothing. But it does make a little difference. And then there are people who prefer to look their fate in the eye . -
“Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?”
Said at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg (1948); reported in Resistance, Rebellion and Death (translation by Justin O'Brien, 1961), p. 73 -
“Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.”
The Rebel(1951) | Part 4: Rebellion and Art -
“Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.”
"The Sea Close By" in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970) -
“We turn our backs on nature ; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.”
"Helen's Exile" (1948)
Albert Camus on Time
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“In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.”
The Rebel(1951) | Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (Section: Moderation and Excess) -
“If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”
Absurd Creation -
“To have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”
A Happy Death(written 1936-38 (published in 1971, over 11 years after the author's death))
Albert Camus on Truth
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“Real fulfillment, for the man who allows absolutely free rein to his desires, and who much dominate everything, lies in hatred.”
The Rebel(1951) | Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion -
“I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.”
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death(1960) | "Pessimism and Tyranny" -
“One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing.”
Letter to Jean-Paul Sartre , 30 June 1952. As quoted in Paris after the Liberation: 1944-1949 by Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper . -
“There is no mystery in humans creation. Will performs this miracle. But at least there is no true creation without a secret.”
Absurd Creation | Kirilov -
“"This is the truth," we say. "You can discuss it as much as you want; we aren't interested. But in a few years there'll be the police who will show you we are right."”
The Fall(1956)
Albert Camus on Virtue
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“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”
La vraie générosité envers l'avenir consiste à tout donner au présent. -
“A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.”
The Rebel(1951) | Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion; also quoted in Albert Camus : The Invincible Summer (1958) by Albert Maquet, p. 86; a remark made about the Marquis de Sade
Things actually not said by Albert Camus
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Albert Camus but are in fact from someone else. Did Albert Camus say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
This sentimental verse is widely circulated as Albert Camus, but no source has been found in his published works, journals, or correspondence. Researchers including Quote Investigator have traced it to anonymous greeting-card and bookmark verse circulating from the mid-20th century onward; it has also been spuriously attributed to Khalil Gibran and other authors. There is no evidence it is from Camus.
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Widely attributed to Camus on the internet, the earliest attribution of such a statement to him yet located is an unsourced citation in Quotations from the Wayside (1999) by Brenda Wong: "Many things are worth dying for, but none worth killing for." The earliest occurrence yet located of such a stat
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Attributed to Camus on social media, this sentence was taken from the Wikipedia article on Camus: "In Le Mythe , dualism becomes a paradox: we value our own lives in spite of our mortality and in spite of the universe's silence. While we can live with a dualism ( I can accept periods of unhappiness,
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth.”
Please read this article for more information: Did Camus ever say “Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth”? | Literature Stack Exchange
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write in images instead of arguments.”
This may have arisen as a paraphrase of statements found in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), "An Absurd Reasoning", or one found in The Novelist as Philosopher: Studies in French Fiction 1935-1960 (1962) edited by John Cruikshank, p. 218 (Disputed.)
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
There is no documented evidence that Camus ever wrote or said this, aside from Barry Schwartz's uncited mention in The Paradox of Choice . It is likely falsely attributed. (Disputed.)
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
Pablo Picasso said something very similar. Perhaps it is the source? From Herschel B. Chipp's Theories of Modern Art: "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth , at least the truth that is given us to understand." (Disputed.)
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“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.”
Widely attributed, but likely apocryphal. Researchers have searched for this quote unsuccessfully in Camus' extant works. (Disputed.)
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Did Albert Camus say this? No.
“We all have a weakness for beauty.”
Claimed to be from The First Man, but not an accurate citation. The complete sentence is: "And then he understood that his grandmother's love for her son was physical, that, like everyone, she was in love with the grace and strength of Ernest, and her weakness for him that had seemed unusual was after all very common; it softens us all more or less, and delightfully so besides, and helps make the world bearable—it is our weakness for beauty." (Disputed.)