Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. May his quotes inspire you to live a life of service and freedom.
1. “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” Albert Camus
2. “Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” Albert Camus
3. “Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.” Albert Camus
4. “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
5. “In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
6. “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.” Albert Camus
7. “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” Albert Camus
8. “The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance.” Albert Camus
9. “You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.” Albert Camus
10. “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” Albert Camus
11. “Integrity has no need of rules.” Albert Camus
12. “Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.” Albert Camus
13. “There is no love of life without despair of life.” Albert Camus
14. “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” Albert Camus
15. “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” Albert Camus
16. “An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.” Albert Camus
17. “The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.” Albert Camus
18. “Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” Albert Camus
19. “No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.” Albert Camus
20. “Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.” Albert Camus
21. “But what is happiness, except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?” Albert Camus
22. “Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence.” Albert Camus
23. “Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.” Albert Camus
24. “To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.” Albert Camus
25. “To know oneself, one should assert oneself.” Albert Camus
26. “Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.” Albert Camus
27. “Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.” Albert Camus
28. “Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and that is its whole secret.” Albert Camus
29. “I began not by feeling torn, but in plentitude.” Albert Camus
30. “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” Albert Camus
31. “You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.” Albert Camus
32. “The place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.” Albert Camus
33. “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.” Albert Camus
34. “Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.” Albert Camus
35. “I know of one duty, and that is to love.” Albert Camus
36. “Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.” Albert Camus
37. “Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and does.” Albert Camus
38. “Every artist wants to be recognized. So do I.” Albert Camus
39. “We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.” Albert Camus
40. “The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.” Albert Camus
