Albert Camus Men Quotations [Page 2]

The first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe.

We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But tasks are called superhuman when men take a long time to complete them, that is all.

There is a metaphysical honour in ending the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance.... War cannot be negated. One must live it or die of it. So it is with the absurd: it is a question of breathing with it, of recognizing its lessons and recovering their flesh. In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. "Art and nothing but art", said Nietzsche, "we have art in order not to die of the truth."

For the absurd man, it is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing. Everything begins with lucid indifference.

In truth, I was so good at being a man, with such plenitude and simplicity, that I thought I was something of a superman.

The sense of doing good , the satisfaction of being right, the joy of looking favorably upon oneself, dear sir, are powerful levers for keeping us upright and making us progress. On the other hand, if men are deprived of that feeling, they are changed into rabid dogs.

In order to exist, man must rebel.

The Poor Man whom everyone speaks of, the Poor Man whom everyone pities, one of the repulsive Poor from whom charitable souls keep their distance, he has still said nothing. Or, rather, he has spoken through the voice of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At least, they said so. And these shameful impostures fed their authors. Cruel irony, the Poor Man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.

Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.

That's the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he can't love without self-love.

By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored

What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?

Cruel irony, the poor man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.

How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in?

More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.

In a universe suddenly divested of illusion and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

There is always a certain hour of the day and of the night when a man’s courage is at its lowest ebb, and it was that hour only that he feared.

maybe she had become tired of being the girlfriend of a condemned man. It also occured to me that maybe she was sick, or dead. These things happen. [...] Anyway, after that, remembering Marie meant nothing to me. That seemed perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead.

But when a man has had only four hours' sleep he isn't sentimental. He sees things as they are: that is to say, he sees them in the garish light of justice; hideous, witless justice.

In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.

A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.

Great ideas, it has been said, come into the world as gently as doves. Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say that this hope lies in a nation; others in a man. I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished, by millions of solitary individuals whose and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history.

Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. 'But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.' And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten-- since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably.

A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.

The world I live in is loathsome to me, but I feel one with the men who suffer in it

Men like us are good and proud and strong...if we had a faith, a God, nothing could undermine us. But we had nothing, we had to learn everything, and living for honor alone has its weaknesses...

This absurd, godless world is, then, peopled with men who think clearly and have ceased to hope. And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator.

You know, a man always judges himself by the balance he can strike between the needs of his body and the demands of his mind. You're judging yourself now, Mersaut, and you don't like the sentence.

...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men I’ve seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." "Obviously," I replied, "they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it." I, however, didn’t want to be helped, and I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me.

So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time.

If Nietzsche is correct, that to shame a man is to kill him, then any honest attempt at autobiography will be an act of self-destruction.

...there was only one thing that interested her and that was getting into bed with men whenever she'd the chance. And I warned her straight. 'You'll be sorry one day, my girl, and wish you'd got me back'.

On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but I remembered just in time that I'd killed a man.

To think the way you do, you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope. On both perhaps.

There was a time when I didn’t at any minute have the slightest idea how I could reach the next one. Yes, one can wage war in this world, ape love, torture one’s fellow man, or merely say evil of one’s neighbour while knitting. But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman.

I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one

I don't want to represent man as he is, but only as he might be.

When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning: a deaf population absent-mindedly registers the condemnation of a man. ... there is no other solution but to speak out and show the obscenity hidden under the verbal cloak.

Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man.

Wandering seemed no more than the happiness of an anxious man.

Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him.

The mind's deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man's unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity.

Believe me, the hardest thing for a man to give up is that which he really doesn't want, after all.

Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world.

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.

The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.

There are always reasons for murdering a man. But there is no justification for his existence.

To lose one's life is no great matter; when the time comes I'll have the courage to lose mine. But what's intolerable is to see one's life being drained of meaning, to be told there's no reason for existing. A man can't live without some reason for living.

Rule: Start by looking for what is valid in every man.

On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.