Don’t let them tell us stories.
albert Camusquotes
1913 - 1960
French-Algerian novelist and essayist, Albert Camus (1913-1960) is often called a “spokesman for his generation” and a “mentor for the next.” His dominant contribution to philosophy was his reflection on the Absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus he calls for a revolt against the futile search for the meaning of life, and to fight for values like truth, moderation and justice while creating personal meaning and autonomy.
In an era of nihilists and communists, Camus was neither and often wrote against such ideas (and often fought drunk, offended communists). During the Nazi Occupation in Paris, Camus joined a resistance movement and wrote as an underground journalist. As a political theorist, he outlined ideas for a liberal humanism that rejected Christian and Marxist dogma.
His dedicated search for moral order (The Rebel), his consistent assertion for human dignity and fraternity (The Plague) won him the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature in 1957 at the age of 44. In characteristic modesty, Camus asserted it should have gone to André Malraux.
Perhaps surprisingly, it was as a playwright that he found the most satisfaction and personal success. His adaptations of Requiem for a Nun and Possession are his most recognized contributions to the theater.
Writing always beyond his ability, Camus said this practice inspired continual effort, but also caused personal exhaustion. He wrestled with depression, and wrote under the burden of perfectionism – never happy in his work, yet always pressing onward.
Camus died in a car accident at the age of 46; his death considered a tragic loss to literature.
It is better for the intellectual not to talk all the time. To begin with, it would exhaust him, and, above all, it would keep him from thinking. He must create if he can, first and foremost, especially if his creation does not side-step the problems of his time.
His own faith, however, was not lacking in virtues since it consisted in acknowledging obscurely that he would be granted much without ever deserving anything.
We don’t have the time to completely be ourselves. We only have the room to be happy.
What doesn’t kill you make you stronger and stronger.
The real 19th century prophet was Dostoevsky, not Karl Marx.
Some are created to love, while the others – to live.
Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
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.
The love of God is a hard love. It demands total self-surrender, disdain of our human personality. And yet it alone can reconcile us to suffering and the deaths of children, it alone can justify them, since we cannot understand them, and we can only make God’s will ours.