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Albert Camus

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Famous Albert Camus Quotes

“In that daily effort in which intelligence and passion mingle and delight each other, the absurd man discovers a discipline that will make up the greatest of his strengths. The required diligence and doggedness and lucidity thus resemble the conqueror's attitude. To create is likewise to give a shape to one's fate. For all these characters, their work defines them at least as much as it is defined by them. The actor taught us this: There is no frontier between being and appearing.”

MenGivingCharacterPassionActorsEffortAttitudeFateTaughtDisciplineShapesDelightAbsurdDefinedFrontiersDiligenceAppearingConquerorTaught UsLucidityDoggedness
Author:Albert Camus
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“What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap to freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again.”

GivingRunningCoursesChanceCuttingStreetsPossibilityMadCaughtCornersLuxuryRanLeapRitualBulletsCaught UpMachineryStreet Corners
Author:Albert Camus
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“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”

PeopleGivingIdeasReasonLife IsDiesDyingJudgingIllusionExcellentMeaning Of LifeThriveUrgentWorth LivingSisyphusLife Is Not Worth LivingMyth Of Sisyphus
Book:The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
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“When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling. Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.”

PeopleKnowsGivingFeelingsSeemsEyeActionYoungAsksGraceConsequenceEndlessGenerousCompanionshipEverlastingMiraculousStraightforward
Author:Albert Camus
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“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.”

WayGivingBelieveSufferingPassionMemoriesWonderfulRegretDespairForgottenUnhappyBelieve In MeVagueGreat LoveGreat Memories
Book:Happy Death
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“I am just coming out of five years of night, and this orgy of violent lights gives me for the first time the impression of a new continent. An enormous, 50-foot high Camel billboard : a GI with his mouth wide open blows enormous puffs of real smoke. So much bad taste hardly seems imaginable.”

GivingYearsFirstsRealLightSeemsNightFiveFeetNew YorkTasteMouthsFirst TimeGive MeBlowWideViolentEnormousImpressionSmokeFive YearsComing OutContinentsCamelsPuffBad TasteBillboardsGis
Book:American journals
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“Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down... There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.”

WayGivingShouldDoneMightFightingAnswersAttitudeTownsConclusionInevitableLogicalBowsAdmirableMoralistProclaimingCertitudeOur TownFledglingsBowing Down
Book:The plague: translated from the French
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