Albert Camus (7 November 1913 - 4 January 1960) Algerian-French author and philosopher

Attributed

• "Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower."

• "Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics."

• "La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un coeur d'homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux."
  • Translation: "The fight itself towards the summits suffices to fill a heart of man; it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus happy."

• "Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question."

• "Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day."

• "Au milieu de l'hiver, j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été."
  • Translation: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

• "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

• "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."

• L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable - il n'a pas commencé l'histoire - ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
  • Translation: In the end, man is not entirely guilty - he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent - he continues it.

• "If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying for?"

• "I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice."

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

• "He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool."

• "If the world were clear, art would not exist."

• "The philosopher, even if he is Kant, is a creator."

• "The fecundity and the importance of a literary form are often measured by the trash it contains."

• "C'est bien là le génie: l'intelligence qui connaît ses frontières."
  • Translation: "That's what a genius is, an intelligence that knows its limits."

• "All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football."

• "Aujourd'hui maman est mort."
  • Translation: "Today, Mama died." The bleak opening sentence of The Stranger

• "Life can be magnificent and overwhelming --- that is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger, it would be almost easy to live."

• "Every achievement is a servitude. It drives us to a higher achievement."

• "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

The blood of the Hungarians (1957)

• "Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories. In Europe's isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them. It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices."

External links