Albert Camus Quotes about Philosophy

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Albert Camus

Inspirational, Courage, Philosophy

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Albert Camus

Suicide, Philosophy, Suicidal

Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "Absurdity and Suicide" (1942)

The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.

Albert Camus

Life, Suicide, Philosophy

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.

Albert Camus

Philosophy, Life Changing, Mean

Albert Camus (1969). “Notebooks”

We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges.

Albert Camus

Children, Philosophy, Perfect

Albert Camus (2012). “The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt”, p.3, Vintage

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

Albert Camus

Suicide, Philosophy, Philosophical

Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "Absurdity and Suicide" (1942)

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

Albert Camus

Suicide, Philosophy, Philosophical

Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) "Absurdity and Suicide" (1942)

A novel is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images. And in a good novel the philosophy has disappeared into the images.

Albert Camus

Philosophy, Novel

Albert Camus (2012). “Lyrical and Critical Essays”, p.199, Vintage

To think is first of all to create a world (or to limit one's own world, which comes to the same thing).

Albert Camus

Art, Philosophy, Thinking

Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.99, Vintage

I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

Albert Camus

Philosophy, Thinking, Telling The Truth

"Resistance, Rebellion, and Death" by Albert Camus, "Pessimism and Tyranny", 1960.

It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

Albert Camus

Lonely, Stars, Philosophy

L'Etranger (The Stranger) pt. 2, ch. 5 (1942)