Albert Camus Quotes on Nature
For Albert Camus, the natural world, the Mediterranean light, sea, and landscape of his Algerian youth, was a lasting source of meaning, and the quotes gathered here reflect that attachment. Against a culture he thought had turned its back on nature and grown ashamed of beauty, Camus set the sensuous immediacy of the physical world, and he found consolation in the thought that the sweetness of certain nights will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone. In The Rebel he argues that human beings cannot be explained by history alone, since they also find a reason for existence in the order of nature. Drawn from his lyrical essays and later philosophical work, these passages present nature as a measure and a refuge against ideology and abstraction.
Quotes
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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 -
“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”
Absurd Creation | Kirilov -
“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 -
“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" -
“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) -
“"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) -
“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)