Albert Camus

“Having money is a way of being free of money”

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful”

“With rebellion, awareness is born.”

“Don't let them tell us stories”

“A stranger to myself and to the world, armed solely with a thought that negates itself as soon as it asserts, what is this condition in which I can have peace only by refusing to know and to live, in which the appetite for conquest bumps into walls that defy its assaults?”

“Jeune , je demandais aux êtres plus qu'ils ne pouvaient donner : une amitié continuelle , une émotion permanente. Je sais leur demander maintenant moins qu'ils peuvent donner : une compagnie sans phrases . Et leurs émotions , leur amitié , leurs gestes nobles gardent à mes yeux leur valeur entière de miracle : un entier effet de la grâce .”

“A loveless world is a dead world.”

“Spring declares itself solely in the quality of the air or the little baskets of flowers that street-sellers bring in from the suburbs; this is a spring that is sold in the market-place.”

“Mais les traditions familiales n'ont souvent pas de fondement plus solide , et les ethnologues me font bien rire qui cherchent la raison de tant de rites mystérieux . Le vrai mystère dans beaucoup de cas , c'est qu'il n'y a pas de raison du tout .”

“He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence— they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all. And death was a kind of gesture, forever withholding water from the traveler vainly seeking to slake his thirst. But for the others, it was the fatal and tender gesture that erases and denies, smiling at gratitude as at rebellion.”

“Elle le regardait d'un curieux air indécis, comme si elle était partagée entre la foi qu'elle avait dans l’intelligence de son fils et sa certitude que la vie toute entière était faite d'un malheur contre lequel on ne pouvait rien qu'on pouvait seulement endurer .”

“Et moi aussi, je me suis senti prêt à tout revivre. Comme si cette grande colère m'avait purgé du mal, vidé d'espoir, devant cette nuit chargée de signes et d'étoiles, je m'ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde. De l'éprouver si pareil à moi, si fraternel enfin, j'ai senti que j'avais été heureux, et que je l'étais encore. Pour que tout soit consommé, pour que je me sente moins seul, il me restait à souhaiter qu'il y ait beaucoup de spectateurs le jour de mon exécution et qu'ils m'accueillent avec des cris de haine.”

“Un moment après, elle m'a demandé si je l'aimais, Je lui ai répondu que cela ne voulait rien dire, mais qu'il me semblait que non. Elle a eu l'air triste.”

“Elle l'embrassait , et puis , après l'avoir lâché , le regardait et le reprenais pour l'embrasser encore une fois , comme si , ayant mesuré en elle-même tout l'amour qu'elle pouvait lui porter ou lui exprimer, elle avait décidé qu'une mesure manquait encore .”

“You see, I’ve heard of a man whose friend had been imprisoned and who slept on the floor of his room every night in order not to enjoy a comfort of which his friend had been deprived.”

“She was wearing one of my pajama suits, and had the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A moment later she asked me if I loved her. I said that sort of question had no meaning, really; but I supposed I didn't. She looked sad for a bit, but when we were getting our lunch ready she brightened up and started laughing and when she laughs I always want to kiss her.”

“il n'y a pas de justes mais des maîtres méchants qui font régner la vérité implacable.”

“Il rêvait et il voulait mentir, on lui a coupé la langue pour que sa parole ne vienne plus tromper le monde.”

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“Men, too, secrete the inhuman. At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them. A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive. This discomfort in the face of man’s own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this “nausea,” as a writer of today calls it, is also the absurd.”

“Quelle bouillie, quelle bouillie ! Il faut mettre de l'ordre dans ma tête. Depuis qu'ils m'ont coupé la langue, une autre langue, je ne sais pas, marche sans arrêt dans mon crâne, quelque chose parle, ou quel-qu'un, qui se tait soudain et puis tout recommence ô j'entends trop de choses que je ne dis pourtant pas, quelle bouillie, et si j'ouvre la bou-che, c'est comme un bruit de cailloux remués. De l'ordre, un ordre, dit la langue, et elle parle d'autre chose en même temps, oui j'ai toujours désiré l'ordre !!”

“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.”

“Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already been felt what solution might be given. At this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate, knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness.”

“Ou não somos livres e o responsável pelo mal é Deus todo-poderoso, ou somos livres, mas Deus não é todo-poderoso.”

“In the past, the poverty they shared had a certain sweetness about it. When the end of the day came and they would eat their dinner in silence with the oil lamp between them, there was a secret joy in such simplicity, such retrenchment.”

“Nous nous confions rarement à ceux qui sont meilleurs que nous. Nous fuirions plutôt leur société. Le plus souvent au contraire, nous nous confions à ceux qui nous ressemblent et qui partagent nos faiblesses. Nous ne désirons donc pas nous corriger ni être améliorés : il faudrait d'abord que nous fussions jugés défaillants. Nous souhaitons seulement être plaints et encouragés dans notre voie. En somme, nous voudrions en même temps ne pas être coupable et ne pas faire l'effort de nous purifier. Pas assez de cynisme et pas assez de vertu. Nous n'avons ni l'énergie du mal, ni celle du bien.”

“February 13, 1936I ask of people more than they can give me. It is useless to maintain the contrary. But what a mistake and what despair. And myself perhaps...Seek contacts. All contacts. If I want to write about men, should I stop talking about the countryside? If the sky or light attract me, shall I forget the eyes or voices of those I love? Each time I am given the elements of a friendship, the fragments of an emotion, never the emotion or the friendship itself.”

“Avez-vous remarqué que la mort seule réveille nos sentiments? Comme nous aimons les amis qui viennent de nous quitter, n’est-ce pas? Comme nous admirons ceux de nos maîtres qui ne parlent plus, la bouche pleine de terre! L’hommage vient alors tout naturellement, cet hommage que, peut-être, ils avaient attendu de nous toute leur vie. Mais savez-vous pourquoi nous sommes toujours plus justes et plus généreux avec les morts? La raison est simple ! Avec eux, il n’y a pas d’obligation. Ils nous laissent libres, nous pouvons prendre notre temps, caser l’hommage entre le cocktail et une gentille maîtresse, à temps perdu, en somme. S’ils nous obligeaient à quelque chose, ce serait à la mémoire, et nous avons la mémoire courte. Non, c’est le mort frais que nous aimons chez nos amis, le mort douloureux, notre émotion, nous-mêmes enfin!”

“Parfois, tard dans ces nuits où la danse, l’alcool léger, mon déchaînement, le violent abandon de chacun, me jetaient dans un ravissement à la fois las et comblé, il me semblait, à l’extrémité de la fatigue, et l’espace d’une seconde, que je comprenais enfin le secret des êtres et du monde. Mais la fatigue disparaissait le lendemain et, avec elle, le secret; je m’élançais de nouveau.”

“To be famous, in fact, one has to kill one's landlady.”

“I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.”

“crois-tu que deux hommes dont l'âme et la fierté sont égales peuvent, au moins une fois dans leur vie, se par-ler de tout leur coeur - comme s'ils étaient nus l'un devant l'autre, dépouillés des préjugés, des intérêts particuliers et des mensonges dont ils vivent ?”

“It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the “why” arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”

“Quand on a fait la guerre, c'est à peine si on sait déjà ce que c'est qu'un mort. Et puis-qu'un homme mort n'a de poids que si on l'a vu mort, cent millions de cadavres semés à travers l'histoire ne sont qu'une fumée dans l'imagination.”

“But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.”

“Ce que je sais de la morale, c'est au football que je le dois.(I know of morality, it is football that I owe.)”

“Viver, naturalmente, nunca é fácil. Continuamos fazendo os gestos que a existência impõe por muitos motivos, o primeiro dos quais é o costume. Morrer por vontade própria supõe que se reconheceu, mesmo instintivamente, o caráter ridículo desse costume, a ausência de qualquer motivo profundo para viver, o caráter insensato da agitação cotidiana e a inutilidade do sofrimento. Qual é então o sentimento incalculável que priva o espírito do sono necessário para a vida? Um mundo que se pode explicar, mesmo com raciocínios errôneos, é um mundo familiar. Mas num universo repentinamente privado de ilusões e de luzes, pelo contrário, o homem se sente um estrangeiro. É um exílio sem solução, porque está privado das lembranças de uma pátria perdida ou da esperança de uma terra prometida. Esse divórcio entre o homem e sua vida, o ator e seu cenário é propriamente o sentimento do absurdo. E como todos os homens sadios já pensaram no seu próprio suicídio, pode-se reconhecer, sem maiores explicações, que há um laço direto entre tal sentimento e a aspiração ao nada.”

“The hearing was adjourned. For a few brief moments, as I left the Law Courts on my way to the van, I recognised the familiar smells and colours of a summer evening. In the darkness of my mobile prison I rediscovered one by one, as if rising from the depths of my fatigue, all the familiar sounds of a town that I loved and of a certain time of day when I sometimes used to feel happy. The cries of the newspaper sellers in the languid evening air, the last few birds in the square, the shouts of the sandwich sellers, the moaning of the trams high in the winding streets of the town and the murmuring of the sky before darkness spills over onto the port, all these sounds marked out an invisible route which I knew so well before going into prison. Yes, this was the time of day when, long ago, I used to feel happy. What always awaited me then was a night of easy, dreamless sleep. And yet something had changed, for with the prospect of the coming day, it was to my cell that I returned. As if a familiar journey under a summer sky could as easily end in prison as in innocent sleep.”

“My life was lucky so that I met, I loved (and disappointed) only outstanding people.”

“People, who suffer from sadness and suddenly become happy, betray themselves: they stick to happiness, as if to hug, and strangle it out of jealousy.”

“It would be the most peaceful to love in silence, but there are consciousness and personality, so we have to speak. And then love becomes hell.”

“I kept myself aloof from the world not because I had enemies, but because I had friends there. Not because they damaged me, as this happens usually, but because they thought I'm better than I really am. It was a lie that I could not stand.”

“Mas, no que se refere a este tribunal, a virtude negativa da tolerância deve transformar-se na virtude menos fácil, mas mais elevada, da justiça. Sobretudo, quando o vazio de um coração, assim como o que descobrimos neste homem, se torna um abismo onde a sociedade pode sucumbir. [...] Ainda na opinião dele, um homem que matava moralmente a mãe devia ser afastado da sociedade dos homens,exatamente como o que levantava a mão criminosa contra o autor de seus dias. Em todos os casos, o primeiro preparava os atos do segundo, anunciava-os, de certa forma, e legitimava-os. [...] - Peço-vos a cabeça deste homem - disse. E é sem escrúpulos que vos dirijo este pedido. Pois no decorrer da minha longa carreira tem-me acontecido pedir a pena capital, mas nunca como hoje eu senti este penoso dever tão compensado, equilibrado, iluminado pela consciência de um mandamento sagrado e imperativo e pelo horror que sinto diante de um rosto humano onde nada leio que não seja monstruoso.”

“Foi então que tudo vacilou. O mar trouxe um sopro espesso e ardente. Pareceu-me que o céu se abria em toda a sua extensão, deixando chover fogo. Todo o meu ser se retesou e crispei a mão sobre o revólver. O gatilho cedeu, toquei o ventre polido da coronha e foi aí, no barulho ao mesmo tempo seco e ensurdecedor, que tudo começou. Sacudi o suor e o sol. Compreendi que destruíra o equilíbrio do dia, o silêncio excepcional de uma praia onde havia sido feliz. Então atirei quatro vezes ainda num corpo inerte em que as balas se enterravam sem que se desse por isso. E era como se desse quatro batidas secas na porta da desgraça.”

“I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed.”

“But perhaps the the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.”

“as if familiar paths traced in summer skies could lead as easily to prison as to the sleep of the innocent.”

“Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”

“People always think that a suicide is commited for one reason. But it is perfectly possible to commit a suicide for two reasons.”

“We are created to live side by side. However, we only die for ourselves.”