Albert Camus Quotes on Virtue
Albert Camus was a 20th-century French philosopher, novelist, and journalist, born in French Algeria, who developed the philosophical position known as absurdism. This page collects quotes attributed to Albert Camus on the topic of virtue, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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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. -
“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 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 -
“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