Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, French Algeria, on November 7, 1913, and died on January 4, 1960, in Burgundy, France. During the 1940’s he became known for his essays, novels, and political journalism. Some of his best-known works are exemplars of absurdism like The Plague (1947), Exile and the Kingdom (1957), The Fall (1956), and The Stranger (1942). He never considered himself to be a philosophical ally of Sartre.
At that time, he bought a fresh perspective to the otherwise metropolitan French literature. Apart from writing novels, he even contributed to plays and was an active artist in the theatre from the 1940s to the 1950s. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957.
His works are dominant in absurdism but often associated with existentialism. The book which elucidates the theory of absurdism most directly is The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). The protagonists of The Plague (1947) and The Stranger (1942) have to face the cultural and social orthodox labels with dire results.
Quotes on Plague
1)”I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
2)”There have been as many plagues as wars in history: Yet always plaques and wars take people by surprise”
3)”There is no denying that the plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship”
4)”But what does it mean, the plague? It’s life, that’s all.”
5)”They considered themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there is plague, pestilence and famine.“
6) “How hard must it be to live only with what one knows and what one remembers, cut off from what one hopes for!“
Quotes on love
1)”I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray.”
2)”At the heart of beauty lies something inhuman.”
3) “I know of only one duty and that is to love”
4)” It it not your paintings I like, it is your painting.”
5) “Love is the kind of illness that does not spare the intelligent or thr dull.”
6) “There is no love of life without despair of life.”
7) “A loveless world is a dead world.”
8) “Charm is the way of getting the Answer ‘yes’ without asking a clear question.”
9) “Whoever gives nothing has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love.”
10) “One dies if necessary, one breaks rather than bending. But I bend because I continue to love myself.”
Quotes on Life
1) “Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”
2) “Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
3) “Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”
4) “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
5)”Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
6)”Greatness consists in trying to be great. There is no other way.”
7) “Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.”
8) “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and eluding the grandeur of this life.”
9)”You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”
Quotes on Happiness
1) “Blessed are the hearts that can bend: they shall never be broken.”
2) “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
3) “When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him.”.
4)”You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
5)” Find your happiness in yourself.”
6)”Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.”
7)”We don’t have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.”
8)”The four conditions of happiness: Life in the open air, Love for another being, Freedom from ambition, Creation.’
Quotes on Friendship
1) “Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship- never.”
2) “Friendship is not so simple. It is hard to get and takes a long time, but once one has it, one cannot get rid of it and has to face it.”
3) How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth is a passion which spares nothing.”
4) “I shall tell you a great secret my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.”
Quotes on Life and Death
1)”Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
2)”Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?”
3)”No cause justifies the death of innocent people.”
4)”It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.”
5)”There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.”
6)”There is no love of life without despair of life.”
7) “Life can be magnificent and overwhelming-that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love or danger, it would almost be easy to live.”
8) “There is scarcely any struggle without passion.”
9) “Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.”
10) “Life is a sum of your choices. What are you doing today?”
Quotes on The World
1)”Peace is the only battle worth waging.”
2)”Integrity has no need of rules.”
3) “Success is easy to obtain. What is difficult is to deserve it.”
4)”People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”
5)”When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.”
6)”No matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger- something better, pushing right back.”
7) “We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes , our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.”
8) “The evil that is in the world almost always comes from ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”
9) “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.”
Quotes on Hope and Freedom
1)”Where there is no hope, we must invent it.”
2)”He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.”
3)”In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”
4)”Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.”
Quotes on The Mind
1)”Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
2)”The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.”
3)”Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.”
4)”An intellectual is someone who’s mind watches itself.”
5) “Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.”
6) “Nobody realizes some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
7) “We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.”
8) “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.”
Most Popular Albert Camus Quotes With Meaning
Quote: 1
I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.- Albert Camus
Interests evolve into hobbies or volunteer work, which grow into passions. It takes time, more time than anyone imagines. When you are very clear about your interests then you don’t have to bother about things that don’t interest you anymore. So it is very essential to know about your interests otherwise you will waste a wide span of your life wondering what you should do.
Quote: 2
Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.- Albert Camus
Non reaction is not weakness but strength. Non reaction in other words is forgiveness. And those hearts which can bend are not weak, they have the most resilient heart as they endure all the pain with a smile on a face. Those who bring sunshine to the life of others cannot keep it from themselves.
Quote: 3
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.- Albert Camus
When the world tries all mean to cage you, be a carefree bird and soar high, breaking all the bondage of slavery. We all are bondage slaves, acting on the command of the world. We fear to put out our own opinion, we are scared of living our dreams, we think twice before deciding for ourselves. Cause we all have an after success plan but we don’t have a backup for the failure. Maybe your carefree attitude seems an act of rebel to others but does it once to be guilt-free for yourself.
Quote: 4
But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.- Albert Camus
We all have an inbuilt thought that committing suicide takes courage and simultaneously is the easiest thing to do. But in reality, living in this world takes more courage. We all are bonded to each other in some way or another. And to live with all the baggage of emotions, regrets, guilt’s, failures makes you an unsung warrior. Killing yourself is the easiest as you cut off all the ties and bonds and you become free. But living on withholding onto all the ties and bonds takes strength.
Quote: 5
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.- Albert Camus
Human beings are the only creature who refused to be known what they are. They keep on pretending to be the person, which they are not. Sometimes out of fear to be judged or other times to impress someone. But while all these actions of pretending and manipulating themselves, they forget to be real.
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.- Albert Camus
We all are in a dominating world. There is an old school mindset of judging others but gets furious when they are being judged back. Some people take it casually but some strive hard to pretend normal. In this dominating world, we should listen to each other’s opinions without being harsh. Might someone out there would be craving tremendously just to act normal.
My soul’s a burden to me, I’ve had enough of it. I’m eager to be in that country, where the sun kills every question. I don’t belong here.- Albert Camus
The soul always knows what to do to heal itself, the challenge is to silence the mind.We often fail in doing so.As a result, the soul has to bear the burden of our continuous questioning game.We just want to shift somewhere, where the powerful rays of the sun kills the toxic released from every question that our mind plays with.And make a happy place for the soul to reside.
We don’t have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.- Albert Camus
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. We spent half of our life, but compromising our wishes and seek acceptance from others. Despite the continuous cycle of acceptance and rejection, we make room to be happy with our constants.Therefore the author says we never completely accept ourselves, we just keep ourselves happy by keeping ourselves engaged doing the thing we love.
It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.- Albert Camus
Painting is a language of its own. The artist paints his imagination and describes it with little tools and a splash of colors. The vibrant colors attract the beholder. Similarly, the author says he likes the painting of the particular person whom he had dreamt of in his imagination. The painting of the person feels soothing to his eyes and gain his attention.
Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.- Albert Camus
Many people have the habit to talk in their sleep. This disorder is known as somniloquy. Here the person is unaware of his behavior. And speaks complicated monologues and gibberish. But when a lecture speaks, he is in all his senses and teaches his students with complete awareness. The student somehow may feel the lecture to be boring and nod in-between the session.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.- Albert Camus
To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.- Albert Camus
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.- Albert Camus
I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray.- Albert Camus
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.- Albert Camus
When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.- Albert Camus
People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.- Albert Camus
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.- Albert Camus
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.- Albert Camus
Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.- Albert Camus
Only a philosophy of eternity, in the world today, could justify non-violence.- Albert Camus
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.- Albert Camus
Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.- Albert Camus
Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.- Albert Camus
You may also like to read quotes of Oscar Wilde, Charles Bukowski, and Friedric Nietzsche as well.
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