Camus Quotes
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection of quotes from the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus (1913 - 1960).
Rebel, moralist, communist and anti-communist , Nobel Prize laureate...
Quotes are summarized by topic: art, love, life ethics, man, life, philosophy, religion, human manifestations, time, freedom, absurdity, about oneself, happiness, sex, genius, war, thought, despair, truth, the meaning of life, tenderness , death, soul, glory, science, travel, passions, peace, cynicism, justice, money.
Finally, there are quotes about Camus.
About art
The problem of art is the problem of translation. Bad writers are those who write taking into account an internal context unknown to the reader. You need to write as if together: the main thing here, as elsewhere, is to learn to control yourself.
Art balances between two abysses - frivolity and propaganda. On the crest of the ridge along which a great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, the greatest risk. In this risk, however, and only in this, lies the freedom of art.
Every suffering, excitement, passion has a time when they belong to the person himself with his unique individuality, and another time when they begin to belong to art. But in the first moments, art is powerless to do anything with them. Art is the distance by which time removes suffering from us.
Freedom of art is inexpensive when its only meaning is the spiritual comfort of the artist.
The artist’s misfortune is that he lives not quite in a monastery, and not quite in the world - and he is tormented by the temptations of both lives.
It is better for the writer to understate than to say too much.
It’s disgusting when a writer talks and writes about something he hasn’t experienced.
No work of genius has ever been based on hatred or contempt.
Art has bouts of chastity. It cannot call a spade a spade.
By the way, quotes about art
About love
Not to be loved is just failure, not to love is misfortune.
He who gives nothing has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not that you are not loved, but that you yourself do not love.
Love has its own honor. Once you lose her, love ends.
There must be love in life - one great love in a lifetime, this justifies the causeless attacks of despair to which we are subject.
This is how man is made, my dear, this two-faced creature: he cannot love without loving himself.
The folly of love is that the lover strives for the days of waiting to quickly pass and disappear. This is how he strives to bring the end closer. Thus, one of the facets of love comes into contact with death.
Those who love the truth should seek love in marriage, that is, love without illusions.
Physical jealousy is, to a large extent, self-judgment. Knowing what you yourself are capable of thinking about, you decide that she is thinking about the same thing.
Consciously or unconsciously, women always use the sense of honor and loyalty to this word, which is so strongly developed in men.
By the way, quotes about love
About life ethics
The only worthwhile things are humanity and simplicity.
Real concern for the future is to give everything to the present.
The more tragic a person’s lot, the more inexorable and defiant hope becomes.
If you continue to sincerely love what is truly worthy of love, and do not waste your love on trifles, on trifles, on nonsense, you can little by little make your life brighter and become stronger.
Sooner or later the time comes when you have to choose between contemplation and action. This is what is called: becoming human.
The meaninglessness of existence does not mean the meaninglessness of human existence, just as the fact that there is no God does not mean that there is no morality.
Everything benefits the one who seeks this benefit...
It is better to be a free poor man than a rich slave. Of course, people want to be both rich and free - and because of this, they sometimes become poor slaves.
Don't go ahead of me - I may not make it in time. Don't walk behind me - I might lead you in the wrong direction. Just walk next to me and be my friend.
It is easier to live with a bad reputation than with a good one, because a good reputation is difficult to maintain, you need to be on top all the time - after all, any failure is tantamount to a crime. With a bad reputation, breakdowns are forgivable.
About a human
Man is a religious animal.
The main thing that distinguishes a person from an animal is imagination.
Man is the only creature that refuses to be what it is.
Some are created in order to love, others - in order to live.
There are more reasons to admire people than to despise them.
Man is always the prey of the truths he professes.
The main ability of a person is the ability to forget. But in fairness, it should be noted that he forgets even the good that he himself has created.
Every generation tends to consider itself called upon to remake the world.
Sometimes I think, what will a future historian say about us? To characterize a modern person, one phrase will be enough for him: “He fornicated and read newspapers.” With this brief definition, I dare say, the topic will be exhausted.
We owe our connection with people only to our own efforts: as soon as you stop writing or speaking, you need to isolate yourself, and the crowd of people around you will melt away.
The human heart has an unfortunate tendency to call fate only that which crushes it.
By the way, quotes about a person
About life
To live means to test.
The great question of life is how to live among people.
In life, every minute is fraught with miracle and eternal youth.
It is true that life is the strongest, but it lies at the root of all baseness.
Only one thing is inevitable - death, everything else can be avoided. In the time space that separates birth from death, there is nothing predetermined: everything can be changed and you can even stop the war and live in peace, if you want it properly - very strongly and for a long time.
Every accomplishment condemns you to slavery. It obliges you to higher achievements.
I could never fully believe that the affairs that fill human life are something serious. I didn’t know what was truly “serious”, but what I saw around me seemed like just a game - sometimes funny, sometimes annoying and boring.
By the way, quotes about life
About philosophy
Philosophy is a modern form of shamelessness.
If you want to be a philosopher, write a novel.
Philosophies matter as much as philosophers matter. The more greatness there is in a person, the more truth there is in his philosophy.
There is only one truly serious philosophical problem - the problem of suicide. To decide whether life is or is not worth living is to answer a fundamental question in philosophy.
A thinker moves forward if he does not rush to conclusions, even if they seem obvious to him.
Ancient philosophers thought much more than they read. Printing changed everything. Now they read more than they think. Instead of philosophy, we have only comments.
Nietzsche, whose outward life was more than monotonous, proves that thought working alone is in itself a terrible adventure.
About religion
It is useless to turn to God because you are disappointed in earthly life, and pain has separated you from the world. God pleases souls attached to the world. He loves your joy.
To be a pagan for oneself, a Christian for others - every person instinctively inclines towards this.
Anyone who does not believe in God sees only chaos in a world where people are not valued and gives in to despair.
Without the sinful principle, man would not be able to live, but without the saint he would live happily. Immortality is a hopeless idea.
God was jealous of our pain - that's why he came down to earth to die on the cross.
Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It happens every day.
When religion combines with politics, the Inquisition is born.
By the way, quotes about religion
About human manifestations
The most dangerous temptation is not to be like anyone else.
Nothing inspires more than the awareness of one's own hopeless situation.
When you think about all those pleasures that are completely inaccessible to you, you feel the same fatigue as when you think about those that you have already experienced.
Do you know what charm is? The ability to feel someone say “yes” to you, even though you didn’t ask for anything.
The desire to always be right is a sign of a vulgar mind.
A person feels lonely when he is surrounded by cowards.
A person cannot truly share someone else’s grief, which he does not see with his own eyes.
About the time
Time moves slowly when you keep track of it. It senses being watched. But it takes advantage of our absent-mindedness. It is even possible that there are two times: the one we follow and the one that transforms us.
Generosity towards the future is the ability to give everything related to the present.
Time frightens us with its evidence, the inexorability of its calculations; for all the wonderful reasoning about the soul, we received from it convincing evidence of the opposite.
Question: how to ensure that you do not waste time? Answer: feel time in its entirety. Remedies: spend days in the dentist's waiting room on a hard chair; sitting on the balcony on a Sunday afternoon; listen to reports in a language you don’t understand...
By the way, quotes about time
About freedom
Freedom is, first of all, not privileges, but responsibilities.
Free is the one who can not lie.
And if freedom today is humiliated or chained, it is not at all because it was treacherously betrayed by its enemies. But because she just lost her legal defender. There is no escape from the truth: yes, freedom has become a widow, it has lost you and me.
A person will not become free until he overcomes the fear of death. But not by suicide. You cannot overcome by giving up.
To be able to die, looking death in the eye, without bitterness.
Politicians do not realize how inimical equality is to freedom. There were free people in Greece because there were slaves.
By the way, quotes about freedom
About the absurd
The absurd has meaning only to the extent that one does not agree with it.
The absurdity is not in man or in the world, but in their joint presence.
The absurd is born from the collision of the human mind and the reckless silence of the world.
It is absurd that we are born, and it is absurd that we die.
The justification for an absurd world can only be aesthetic.
Belief in the meaning of life always presupposes a scale of values, choice, preference. Believing in the absurd, by definition, teaches us the exact opposite.
Eliminating the requirement for clarity leads to the disappearance of the absurd
About Me
Why am I an artist and not a philosopher? Because I think in words, not ideas.
Humanism has not yet bored me: I even like it. But it's too small for me.
I don't like other people's secrets. But I'm interested in other people's confessions.
I withdrew from the world not because I had enemies, but because I had friends. Not because they harmed me, as is usually the case, but because they considered me better than I am. I couldn't stand this lie.
I am not created for politics, because I am incapable of either wishing for the death of my opponent or accepting it.
Oh happiness
There is no shame in being happy.
Without imperfection, happiness is imperceptible!
The need for happiness seems to me the most noble aspiration of the human heart.
It's a shame to be happy alone.
An important question that should be resolved “in practice”: is it possible to be happy and alone?
Unhappiness is like marriage. You think that you are choosing, but it turns out that you have been chosen.
By the way, quotes about happiness
About sex
Sex leads nowhere. He is not immoral, but sterile. You can do it until you want to create. But only a chaste person can improve.
Sex brings victory if a person frees him from moral imperatives. But very soon victory turns into defeat, and the true victory is the victory over sex - chastity.
Sexual life was given to man in order to lead him astray. This is his opium. She puts everything to sleep. Without her, things come to life again. On the other hand, abstinence prevents prolongation of the family - this, perhaps, is the truth.
About genius
Genius is a mind that knows its limits.
Genius may be just a fleeting opportunity. Only work and will can give it life and turn it into glory.
How many artists arrogantly refuse to recognize themselves as small people! But this awareness of their “smallness” would be enough to acquire true talent, otherwise inaccessible to them.
About war
For most people, war means the end of loneliness. For me, she is the ultimate loneliness.
To be created to create, to love and to conquer is to be created to live in the world. But war teaches us to lose everything and become something we were not.
Once war becomes a reality, any opinion that does not take it into account begins to sound incorrect.
By the way, quotes about war
About thought
In essence, there is no thought that a person cannot get used to.
In order for a thought to transform the world, it must first transform the life of its creator.
We think one thing about the same thing in the morning and another in the evening. But where is the truth - in night thoughts or in daytime reflections?
By the way, quotes about thoughts
About despair
Without despair in life there is no love of life.
The habit of despair is much worse than despair itself.
If you are entrenched in your despair, act as if you have not lost hope - or kill yourself. Suffering gives no rights.
About truth
Truth shines like light.
Where some saw abstraction, others saw truth.
It is amazing how vain a person is who wants to convince himself and others that he is striving for truth, while he thirsts for love.
About the meaning of life
This world is devoid of meaning, and those who realize this gain freedom.
I do not understand the unique meaning of the world, and therefore it is immensely irrational for me.
I have seen many people die because life was no longer worth living for them. From this I conclude that the question of the meaning of life is the most pressing.
By the way, quotes about the meaning of life
About tenderness
There is something in the world that one must always strive for and that is sometimes given into one’s hands, and this something is human tenderness.
All people in life are given at least a little affection. It helps them live. And it is affection that they expect when they feel tired.
About death
Every man dies a stranger.
In death, play and heroism find their true meaning.
We are created to live side by side with others. But we truly die only for ourselves.
Death imparts a new form of love - as well as life, it turns love into Fate.
About the soul
If the soul exists, it would be wrong to think that it is given to us already created. It happens on earth throughout life.
Life itself is nothing more than this long and painful birth. When the creation of the soul, which man owes to himself and to suffering, is completed, death comes.
If the body yearns for the soul, there is no reason to believe that in eternal life the soul does not suffer from separation from the body - and, therefore, does not dream of returning to earth.
By the way, quotes about the soul
About fame
Fame is the right to love immensely.
What is a celebrity? This is a person whom everyone knows by his last name, and therefore his name does not matter. For everyone else, the name is significant.
About science
Science explains what works, not what is.
The greatest economy that is possible in the field of thought is to agree that the world is unknowable and to concern ourselves with man.
By the way, quotes about science
About the trip
Travel, as the greatest science and serious science, helps us find ourselves again.
The most convenient way to get to know a city is to try to find out how they work here, how they love here and how they die here.
By the way, quotes about travel
About passions
Only those who have subjugated them can live by passions.
The highest virtue is to stifle your passions. The deeper virtue is to bring them into balance.
About the world
The world is beautiful, and outside of it there is no salvation.
Unbridled sensuality leads to the belief that the world is meaningless. Chastity, on the contrary, returns meaning to the world.
By the way, quotes about peace
About cynicism
The eternal temptation against which I constantly wage a grueling battle is cynicism.
The trouble of our century. Until recently, bad deeds needed justification; now good deeds need it.
About justice
There is no justice, there are only limits.
Injustice is either fought or cooperated.
About money
Any life devoted to the pursuit of money is death. Resurrection is in selflessness.
I don’t know what could be better than poverty combined with active leisure.
By the way, quotes about money
About miscellaneous
Anxiety is just a slight aversion to the future.
Lying is something that we all resort to every day in order to make our lives easier.
Eternal recurrence presupposes reconciliation with suffering.
It is easier to digest your neighbors in small doses. And this dish also cannot be salted.
Free press can be good or bad, that's true. But it is even more true that a non-free press can only be bad.
School prepares us to live in a world that does not exist.
In our society, anyone who does not cry at their mother's funeral risks being sentenced to death.
Civilization is not about more or less sophistication. But in a consciousness common to the whole people. And this consciousness is never subtle. On the contrary, it is quite healthy. You just have to develop habits and your days will flow smoothly.
Those whom human justice or human malice keep behind bars impatiently push the present, glance hostilely at the past and are absolutely deprived of the future.
Solitude is a luxury of the rich.
Will is the same loneliness.
Beauty leads us to despair, it is an eternity that lasts a moment, and we would like to extend it forever.
Responsibility to history frees us from responsibility to people. This is its convenience.
Growing old means moving from feeling to empathy.
The evil that exists in the world is almost always the result of ignorance, and any good will can do as much damage as an evil one unless that good will is sufficiently enlightened.
What captivates us about Camus is his sincere search for answers to the difficult questions of human life. He did not try to build his own explanatory philosophical system, which people of art usually do poorly, but with his ideas and doubts he had a noticeable influence on the consciousness of modern people.
Quotes about Camus
- J.-P. Sartre: Camus represented in our century - and in the controversy against current history - today's heir to the ancient breed of those moralists whose work represents perhaps the most original line in French literature. His stubborn humanism, narrow and pure, stern and sensual, waged a battle of doubtful outcome against the crushing and ugly trends of the era. And yet, with the stubbornness of his “no”, he - in defiance of the Machiavellians, in defiance of the golden calf of business - strengthened the moral foundations in her heart. (see Sartre quotes)
- A. Maurois: While still very young, he became a living mirror of an entire generation. Readers abroad received him so favorably that he received the Nobel Prize at an age when others dream in vain of Goncourt. In 1946, when I visited the Americas, all the students asked me about Sartre and Camus. On what basis did this worldwide fame rest? A short novel, The Stranger, a play, Caligula, and several essays, including The Myth of Sisyphus. But what then is the reason? And the fact that Camus reflected the vague guesses of the youth of the war and post-war times. (see Maurois quotes)
- J. Philip: The greatest contemporary? Albert Camus - he is taller than anyone with whom I had the opportunity to communicate!
- V. Nabokov: Second-rate, ephemeral, overblown. Terrible. (see Nabokov quotes)
- V. Erofeev: But if Camus knew what to oppose to the forces of nihilism that encroach on human dignity, then he could not find an antidote, as Tolstoy said, “to the madness of egoism.” Having exposed the destructive tendencies of individualism that lead a person to “fall,” Camus was unable or did not have time to offer an alternative.
Next, you can move on to other collections of quotes:
- Fromm quotes
- Kafka quotes
- Saint-Exupery quotes
- Orwell quotes
- Che Guevara quotes
- Hemingway quotes
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Albert Camus and Maria Casares: proud love
Albert Camus wrote in his diaries about the initial period of his relationship with Maria Cazares: “In 1944 we experienced delightful hours. But often, even after our meetings, happiness was poisoned by pride for both of us. Proud love has its greatness, but it lacks the all-conquering reliability that giving love contains.”
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Game not by the rules
The writer and actress first met in the apartment of Marcel Herran, director and director of the Parisian Mathurin theater.
Camus was married, but was not faithful to his wife. Moreover, there was a war going on, and his wife Francine was going through the occupation in Algeria. Cazares preferred fleeting hobbies and enjoyed the adoration of her fans.
That evening Camus read his new play, which Erran was going to stage.
Albert was nervous and hid behind feigned arrogance. Maria unceremoniously demonstrated her interest and did not take her gaze off his face.
Unexpectedly for Camus, Maria outrageously destroyed all the rules of his previous games with women, in which he was the conqueror and the lady the seduced. After the reading, she herself offered to conduct it...
After this meeting, both seemed to have lost their minds, rushing headlong into the abyss of violent passion.
He called her the only Cazares. Fiercely jealous of friends, colleagues, any strangers who dared to appear nearby, and even of her work. I wrote letters to her twice a day. She calmed him down and fully accepted his fickleness and violent nature. Camus obtained real butter on the black market, and even arranged for Maria, having agreed with an acquaintance, to ride in a tank around Paris.
Despite the fact that Maria was 9 years younger than her lover, at that time she was much more famous. He was familiar to a narrow circle of philosophy lovers, and she was enthusiastically welcomed in every cafe.
Lifelong passion
Camus rushed about, remembered his wife’s defenselessness and compared it with the Spanish indomitability of his new girlfriend. Finally, he illogically began to call his wife to come back.
Francine returned and soon gave birth to twins for her husband. Having learned about this, Maria broke off relations with the writer.
For the next 3 years they met only by chance. And then in 1948, the flame of love flared up again, as if their quarrel had never happened. And again suspicions and crazy jealousy. At this time, Albert even unintelligently punched his former rival in the face in a bar.
After some time, Camus, frightened by the exacerbation of tuberculosis, ran away from Paris and tried to start a calm, healthy life. But the news that Maria was going to get married at that time threw him off his feet and led to a loud showdown.
Since then, they have explained themselves thousands of times, shouted at each other, got offended, separated and come together.
They both had side affairs, but Camus admitted to his friends that without a hurricane of feelings he could neither write nor live. Only Maria brought such a hurricane into his existence.
In 1960, at the age of 47, Albert Camus died in a car accident. He died instantly. Shortly before his death, his lover offered to go to Mexico together...
Maria Cazares outlived her friend by 36 years, and died at the age of 74.
Malova Veronica, 09/06/2012
