Quotes by Albert Camus

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

"Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others."

"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time."

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."

"Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference."

"When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it."

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."

"It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future."

"A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad."

"Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never."

"How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing."

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present."

"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is."

"By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more."

"Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them."

"He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool."

"Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears."

"To know oneself, one should assert oneself."

"In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself - limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist."

"The society based on production is only productive, not creative."

"After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books."

"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."

"A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing."

"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."

"Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death."