Albert Camus Quotes on Man (32 Quotes)

A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.

The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone. As it is not so easy as the detective novels might lead one to believe, one generally relies on politics and joins the cruelest party.What does it matter, after all, if by humiliating one's mind one succeeds in dominating every one? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression.

But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is one of knowing whether two and two do make four

But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.

I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.

On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but I remembered just in time that I'd killed a man.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don't go in for politics.

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

I don't want to be a genius I have enough problems just trying to be a man.

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.

How hard, how bitter it is to become a man!

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

In our society any man who doesn't cry at his mother's funeral is liable to be condemned to death

If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

...There are more things to admire in men than to despise.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful you have a right only to their skepticism.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.