135 Albert Camus Quotes: Best Lines on Life, Rebellion & the Absurd

Whether you know him from “One must imagine Sisyphus happy” or are meeting his work for the first time, these lines offer a clear-eyed, deeply human philosophy. Read them slowly; Camus rewards patience.

Albert Camus Quotes on Life and the Absurd

1. There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. — The Myth of Sisyphus
2. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. — The Myth of Sisyphus
3. Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is. — The Myth of Sisyphus
4. At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. — The Myth of Sisyphus
5. The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. — The Myth of Sisyphus
6. The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth. — The Myth of Sisyphus
7. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. — The Myth of Sisyphus
8. All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. — The Myth of Sisyphus
9. What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying. — The Myth of Sisyphus
10. Living, naturally, is never easy. — The Myth of Sisyphus
11. I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. — The Myth of Sisyphus
12. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. — The Myth of Sisyphus
13. We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. — The Myth of Sisyphus
14. If the world were clear, art would not exist. — The Myth of Sisyphus
15. There is scarcely any passion without struggle. — The Myth of Sisyphus
16. Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable. — The Myth of Sisyphus
17. Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. — The Stranger
18. Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter. — The Stranger
19. I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on God. — The Stranger
20. I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world. — The Stranger
21. It is better to burn than to disappear. — The Stranger
22. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. — The Stranger
23. I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. — The Stranger
24. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. — The Stranger
25. At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it. — The Stranger
26. It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about. — A Happy Death
27. Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears. — Notebooks

Albert Camus Quotes on Rebellion and Freedom

1. I rebel; therefore I exist. — The Rebel
2. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. — The Rebel
3. The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. — The Rebel
4. If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. — The Rebel
5. 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. — The Rebel
6. What is a rebel? A man who says no. — The Rebel
7. Rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. — The Rebel
8. The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals great factual inequalities. — The Rebel
9. The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Notebooks
10. Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. — Notebooks
11. The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. — Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
12. By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. — Notebooks
13. A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad. — Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
14. It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. — Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
15. There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for. — Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
16. I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. — Letters to a German Friend
17. No cause justifies the death of the innocent. — Resistance, Rebellion, and Death
18. After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion. — Reflections on the Guillotine
19. The tragedy is not the oppression but the acquiescence. — Notebooks
20. Integrity has no need of rules. — The Plague
21. Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth. — Notebooks
22. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. — Notebooks
23. The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind. — Notebooks
24. Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. — Notebooks
25. You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. — The Fall
26. Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present. — The Rebel
27. Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it. — Notebooks

Albert Camus Quotes on Love and Humanity

1. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. — The Plague
2. I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing. — The Plague
3. What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest, health, integrity, purity, if you like, is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. — The Plague
4. But what does it mean, the plague? It’s life, that’s all. — The Plague
5. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences. — The Plague
6. Everyone has inside him that pestilence or plague; no one on earth is free from it. — The Plague
7. The only way to fight the plague is with decency. — The Plague
8. The world in which I live is loathsome to me, but I feel one with the men who suffer in it. — Notebooks
9. Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. — Notebooks
10. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love. — Notebooks
11. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. — Notebooks
12. Don’t let them tell you there are no miracles. — Notebooks
13. Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? — Notebooks
14. There is no love of life without despair of life. — Notebooks
15. Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. — Notebooks
16. We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die. — Notebooks
17. I don’t want to be a genius. I have enough problems just trying to be a man. — Notebooks
18. Life is the sum of all your choices. — Notebooks
19. In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion. — Notebooks
20. We are all special cases. — The Fall
21. Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day. — The Fall
22. Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic. — The Fall
23. Happiness, too, is inevitable. — Notebooks
24. To live is to keep living. — Notebooks
25. The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. — Nobel Prize speech
26. A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world. — The Plague
27. Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. — Nobel Prize speech

Albert Camus Quotes on Suffering and Death

1. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. — The Myth of Sisyphus
2. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. — The Myth of Sisyphus
3. The mind’s deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity. — The Myth of Sisyphus
4. The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to. — The Myth of Sisyphus
5. The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits. — The Myth of Sisyphus
6. The final conclusion of the absurdist protest is the refusal of suicide and the acceptance of despair. — The Myth of Sisyphus
7. The world itself is not reasonable; that is all that can be said. — The Myth of Sisyphus
8. The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future. — The Myth of Sisyphus
9. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone. — The Myth of Sisyphus
10. Philosophy is the art of formulating questions. — Notebooks
11. I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved that I didn’t eventually betray. — The Fall
12. We are all guilty. — The Fall
13. Each of us insists on being innocent at all costs, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself. — The Fall
14. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object. — The Fall
15. All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. — The Plague
16. Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn’t it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence? — The Plague
17. He knew quite well that it was plague and, needless to say, he also knew that, were this to be officially admitted, the authorities would be compelled to take very drastic steps. — The Plague
18. I am not made for political life, because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary. — Notebooks
19. What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders? — Reflections on the Guillotine
20. I know of only one duty, and that is to love. — Notebooks
21. Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it. — The Myth of Sisyphus
22. The day of my birth, my death began its walk. — Notebooks
23. One cannot create experience. One must undergo it. — Notebooks
24. What I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport. — Notebooks
25. To create is to live twice. — The Myth of Sisyphus
26. In a world without melancholy, nightingales would belch. — Notebooks
27. It’s a long time since I believed in anything. — Caligula

Short Albert Camus Quotes

1. Every ideology is contrary to human psychology. — The Rebel
2. Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom. — The Rebel
3. Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition. — The Rebel
4. Art is not at the service of revolution; it is revolution’s accomplice. — The Rebel
5. The artist reconstructs the world to his plan. — The Rebel
6. What gives value to travel is fear. — Notebooks
7. I have not stopped loving the light. — Notebooks
8. There is no equivalent for the profound and simple feeling of being alive. — Nuptials
9. I am revolted at the thought of dying, but I have come to terms with life. — Notebooks
10. I am not a philosopher. — Notebooks
11. The most futile thing in the world is a philosophy that does not apply to life. — Notebooks
12. I love my country too much to be a nationalist. — Notebooks
13. Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth. (Attributed to Albert Camus) — Attributed to Albert Camus
14. He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. (Attributed to Albert Camus) — Attributed to Albert Camus
15. Every man, and for stronger reasons every artist, wants to be recognized. — The First Man
16. To correct a natural indifference, I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. — The First Man
17. To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. — Caligula
18. Men die, and they are not happy. — Caligula
19. I am still alive, then. That is a sign that nothing is accomplished. — Caligula
20. The reign of human intelligence will soon be over. — Caligula
21. After all, the essential question is not why there are catastrophes, but why there is not a catastrophe every day. — The Fall
22. I have never been able really to love the bourgeoisie, for I have never been able really to love myself. — The Fall
23. I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. — Notebooks
24. I shall tell you a great secret, my friend: do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day. — The Fall
25. Without work, all life goes rotten. — Notebooks
26. A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession. — The Fall
27. The artist must bow to the monster of his own imagination. — Notebooks

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Albert Camus’s most famous quote?

His most famous line is “One must imagine Sisyphus happy” from The Myth of Sisyphus, followed closely by “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer” from Return to Tipasa.

Was Albert Camus an existentialist?

Camus rejected the existentialist label, though he is often grouped with existentialists. He called his philosophy the absurd — the confrontation between humanity’s search for meaning and the world’s silence.

What are the main themes in Albert Camus quotes?

His work returns to the absurd, rebellion against injustice, freedom, the value of the present moment, and solidarity with those who suffer — especially in The Plague and The Rebel.

Which Albert Camus book should I read first?

Start with The Stranger (his most accessible novel), then The Myth of Sisyphus for his philosophy, and The Plague for his vision of human solidarity.

Editor’s Picks: Best Albert Camus Quotes

More to Explore

• Epictetus quotes on Stoic resilience
• Plato quotes on justice and the soul
• Aristotle quotes on virtue and happiness
• Voltaire quotes on reason and tolerance
• Thoreau quotes on simple living
• Khalil Gibran quotes on love and sorrow
• Rumi quotes on the soul’s journey
• Buddha quotes on suffering and peace
• Marcus Aurelius quotes for hard days
• Seneca quotes on time and mortality
• Confucius quotes on character
• Lao Tzu quotes on the Tao

Learn more about his life and works on Wikipedia’s Albert Camus page.