Albert Camus’ “The Fall” Quotes (21 Quotes)


    He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen - and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death. Hurray then for funerals!

    How could sincerity be a condition of friendship? A liking for the truth at all costs is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing can withstand.

    I have a very old and very faithful attachment for dogs. I like them because they always forgive.

    I like these people swarming on the sidewalks, wedged into a little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs, cold lands, and the sea streaming like a wet wash. I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.



    I used to advertise my loyalty and I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray.

    My dear friend, we mustn't give them even the slightest excuse to judge us! Otherwise, we end up in pieces.

    No excuses ever, for anyone; that is my principle at the outset. I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance. With me there is no giving of absolution or blessing.

    One plays at being immortal and after a few weeks one doesn't even know whether or not one can hang on till the next day.

    The only deep emotion I occasionally felt in these affairs was gratitude, when all was going well and I was left, not only peace, but freedom to come and go--never kinder and gayer with one woman than when I had just left another's bed, as if I extended to all others the debt I had just contracted toward one of them.

    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.

    Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world.


    But it's not easy, because friendship is absent-minded or at least powerless. It cannot achieve what it wants. Perhaps, after all, it doesn't want strongly enough. Perhaps we do not love life enough.

    We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.

    But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long.



    When one has no character, one HAS to apply a method. Here it did wonders incontrovertibly, and I am living on the site of one of the greatest crimes in human history.

    False judges are held up in the world's admiration and I alone know the true ones.


    More Albert Camus Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - World - Life - Death & Dying - Liberty & Freedom - Happiness - Mind - Love - People - God - Art - Thought & Thinking - Work & Career - Reasoning - Rebellion - Society & Civilization - Truth - Fate & Destiny - Facts - View All Albert Camus Quotations

    More Albert Camus Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - The Fall
    - The Plague
    - The Stranger

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