Albert Camus Quotations
The Algerian born French writer and philosopher, Albert Camus, was the second youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first being Rudyard Kipling. Camus is often associated with existentialism although he rejected the term, preferring to be known only as an author and a thinker. His life was made challenging by recurring tuberculosis, two marriages marred with infidelity, intermittent employment as a journalist and was ended prematurely by an auto accident. He was active within the French Resistance to the German occupation of France during World War II. For the 1st quote, he wrote on the French collaboration with Nazi occupiers:
Unfortunately, he died in a car accident just a few years after receiving the Nobel monetary prize.
Image: Photograph of writer, Albert Camus
“Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people.”
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
“Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”
“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”
“Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.”
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
Often associated with existentialism, Albert Camus was a French author and philosopher who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.”
This recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature said wanted to be known based on the individuality of his own work and not so much as belonging to the French existentialist movement of the times. He said,
“No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked….”
“It’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.”
– Albert Camus (1913-1960)
