Albert Camus

"There are moments when, whatever the sea, I forget to despair."

"One's work is better when one is weary."

"A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is, is doomed."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that very existence is an act of rebellion."

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of."

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

"Rebellion cannot exist without a strange love for the things one rebels against."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to preserve oneself, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

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

"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."

"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question."

"The only way to deal with the inevitable is to face it with grace and humor."

"I love my country too much to be a nationalist."

"To lose one's life is a little thing and I shall have the courage to do so if it is necessary; but to see the meaning of this life dissipated, to see our reason for existence disappear, this is what is unbearable."

"Every revolt is an appeal to the martyr's truth."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, we feel every quiver."

"The only really committed artist is he who commits his entire person—his passions, his obsessions, his whole being—to his work."

"I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd."

"Real freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline."

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."

"An absurd human situation is the essential concept and the only truth."

"Life is neither good nor evil, but simply it is inevitable."

"I rebel; therefore, I exist."

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

"Fortunately, everything that is absurd eventually becomes reasonable."

"The capacity to be bored is the real key to a well-rounded human existence."

"Creativity is the last remaining freedom we have in a world of constraints."

"We must imagine Sisyphus happy as he pushes his boulder up the hill."

"The noble passion for truth cannot find expression in a world of lies."