Albert Camus

“Doubts are the innermost corner of our souls. One must not talk about his doubts, whatever they may be.”

“Solitude must be accepted with all its difficulties.”

“You help far more when you depict a person favorably than instruct its weaknesses.”

“There is a life and there is a death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.”

“Some are created to love, while the others - to live.”

“The beginning of war is similar to the beginning of peace — the world and the heart know nothing about it.”

“A love that does not bear collision with reality is not a real love. But then the inability to love is a privilege of the noble hearts.”

“As the death of the writer exaggerates the role of his work, the death of a person exaggerates the role of his effect on us.”

“When the time to die comes, it does not matter how and when it happens.”

“There are very few large and many poor feelings in everyone's life.”

“When a conscious being appeared, the world went blank.”

“The anachronism is the worst thing to use at the theatre.”

“A pure love is a dead love.”

“A true masterpiece does not tell everything.”

“Le seul moyen d'affronter un monde sans liberté est de devenir si absolument libre qu'on fasse de sa propre existence un acte de révolte. ”

“Dinliyordum. Bana zeki dediklerini duyuyordum. Yalnız şunu anlamıyordum: Herhangi bir kimsedeki erdemler, nasıl oluyordu da bir suçlu aleyhine ezici bir kanıt olabiliyordu?”

“Tekerlekler üzerinde kayan zindanımın karanlığında, yorgunluğun ta derinliklerinden gelişmişçesine, sevdiğim bir kenti, kendimi mutlu hissettiğim belli bir saatin bütün bu alışılmış gürültülerini eskisi gibi, bir bir bulur gibi oldum. Gerginliğini yitiren havada, gazete satıcılarının sesi, küçük parktaki son kuşların ötüşü, sandviç satıcılarının bağrışması, kentin yüksek dönemeçlerinde tramvayların çıkardığı iniltili gıcırtılar ve göğün daha gece limanın üzerine çökmeden önceki uğultusu, bütün bunlar, benim için, cezaevine düşmeden önce bildiğim gözü kapalı bir gezintiyi düzenliyordu. Evet, bu saat, bundan çok zaman önceleri, kendimi mutlu hissettiğim bir saatti. Beni o zamanlar bekleyen, hep hafif ve deliksiz bir uykuydu. Ama yine de bir şeyler değişmişti. Yarını gözlerken, kendimi yeniden hücremde buluverdim. Yaz göklerinde uzanıp giden o bildik yollar insanı günahsız uykulara da zindanlara da götürebiliyormuş demek.”

“İnşallah bu gece köpekler havlamaz. Hep benimkiymiş gibi geliyor bana.”

“No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.”

“In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything- by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.”

“Je ne connais qu'un seul devoir et c'est celui d'aimer.”

“Youth is above all a collection of possibilities.”

“Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”

“Lo que es preciso subrayar es el aspecto frívolo de la población y de la vida. Pero se pasan los días fácilmente en cuanto se adquieren hábitos, y puesto que nuestra ciudad favorece justamente los hábitos, puede decirse que todo va bien.”

“Sin duda, nada es más natural hoy día que ver a las gentes trabajar de la mañana a la noche y en seguida elegir, entre el café, el juego y la charla, el modo de perder el tiempo que les queda por vivir.”

“Pregunta: ¿qué hacer para no perder el tiempo?Respuesta: sentirlo en toda su lentitud. Medios: pasarse los días en la antesala de un dentista en una silla inconfortable; vivir el domingo en el balcón, por la tarde; oír conferencias en una lengua que no se conoce; escoger los itinerarios del tren más largos y menos cómodos y viajar de pie, naturalmente; hacer la cola en las taquillas de los espectáculos, sin perder su puesto, etc., etc...”

“To begin with, poor people´s memory is less nourished than that of a rich; it has fewer landmarks in space because they seldom leave the place where they live, and fewer reference points in time throughtout lives that are grey and featureless.”

“There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”

“No esperes por el juicio final. Se lleva a cabo cada día.”

“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”

“I am too much in love with my lies and hypocrisies not to confess them fervently.”

“La vie ne vaut rien, mais rien vaut la vie...”

“A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.Albert Camus - As quoted in Albert Camus : The Invincible Summer (1958) by Albert Maquet, p. 86; a remark made about the Marquis de Sade.”

“Let’s not beat around the bush; I love life — that’s my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.”

“We don't have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.”

“Personne n'est capable réellement de penser à personne, fût-ce dans le pire des malheurs. Car penser réellement à quelqu'un, c'est y penser minute après minute, sans être distrait par rien, ni les soins du ménage, ni la mouche qui vole, ni les repas, ni une démangeaison. Mais il y a toujours des mouches et des démangeaisons. C'est pourquoi la vie est difficile à vivre.”

“A part ces ennuis, je n'étais pas trop malheureux. Toute la question, encore une fois, était de tuer le temps.”

“Qu'importait si, accusé de meurtre, il était exécuté pour n'avoir pas pleuré à l'enterrement de sa mère.”

“Il m'a demandé alors si je n'étais pas intéressé par un changement de vie. J'ai répondu qu'on ne changeait jamais de vie, qu'en tout cas toutes se valaient et que la mienne ici ne me déplaisait pas du tout.”

“I have to admit it humbly, mon cher compatriote, I was always bursting with vanity. I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said. I could never talk without boasting, especially if I did so with that shattering discretion that was my specialty. It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in the regard to all the for the excellent reason that I recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I’ve told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover. Even in the fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority–like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable partner–it was hard for me not to think that, with a little time and practice, I would surpass the best players. I admitted only superiorities in me and this explained my good will and serenity. When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self-esteem would go up a degree.”

“False judges are held up in the world’s admiration and I alone know the true ones.”

“Demek ki, ben-ben-ben'in günü gününe sürekliliği dışında başka bir süreklilik olmadan yaşıyordum. Günü gününe kadınlar, günü gününe erdem ya da erdemsizlik, günü gününe, köpekler gibi, ama her gün sağlamca yerinde duran kendim. Böylece yaşamın yüzeyinde ilerliyordum, sözcükler içinde, hiçbir zaman gerçek içinde değil. Tam okunmamış o kitaplar, tam sevilmemiş o dostlar, tam gezilmemiş o kentler, tam sarılmamış o kadınlar! Sıkıntıdan ya da dalgınlıkla birtakım el kol hareketleri yapıyordum. Varlıklar birbirini izliyor, birbirine takılmak istiyorlardı, ama ortada hiçbir şey yoktu, bu da berbat bir şeydi. Onlar için. Bense unutuyordum. Kendimden başka bir şeyi hiçbir zaman anımsamamışımdır ben.”

“Please stop trifling.”

“Le malheur c'est comme le mariage.On croit qu'on choisit et puis on est choisi.”

“Je laisse Sisyphe au bas de la montagne ! On retrouve toujours son fardeau. Mais Sisyphe enseigne la fidélité supérieure qui nie les dieux et soulève les rochers. Lui aussi juge que tout est bien. Cet univers désormais sans maître ne lui paraît ni stérile ni fertile. Chacun des grains de cette pierre, chaque éclat minéral de cette montagne pleine de nuit, à lui seul, forme un monde. La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un cœur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The girl talks to me but I can’t understand her anymore. Naturally, I say yes in my most sincere tone of voice. But I am not with it. Everything annoys me, I hesitate, I don’t feel hungry.”

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