Consulting the Archives...
Generating fresh insights specifically for this topic.
This may take a moment.
Generating fresh insights specifically for this topic.
This may take a moment.
Albert Camus, shaped by the tumultuous backdrop of French Algeria and the existential anxieties of post-war Europe, grappled intensely with the nature of thinking. Living under the shadow of colonialism and witnessing the rise of ideologies that demanded blind faith, Camus recognized the urgent need for clear, independent thought. His experience as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation solidified his belief in the power of rational thought as a tool for both individual freedom and collective liberation. Examine his profound explorations of the absurd, the rebellious spirit, and the ethical responsibilities inherent in the act of thinking.
"Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when revolutions will have need of beauty."
"The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning."
"In order to exist, man must rebel."
"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."
"There is no greatness without a little love for the truth."
"I rebel; therefore we exist."
"Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth."
"He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool."
"Integrity has no need of rules."
"The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world."
"To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion."
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
"A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world."
"A free press can, of course, be both good and bad, but, certainly without freedom, a press will never be anything but bad."
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable."
"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."
"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others."
"In the middle of a world of collapse, I was trying to find a reason for living."
"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."
"I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day."
"Logic is always easy. It is nearly impossible to be logical to the very end."
"What is a rebel? A man who says no."
"One cannot create without also creating oneself."
"Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present."
"The double-sidedness of man is so great that in his most noble moments he is still capable of being a beast."
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."
"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."
"To think is to learn to see anew, to be attentive, to direct one's consciousness."
"Thought is always ahead of itself."
"I have no taste for anything but the truth."
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."
"Everything that exalts life at the same time increases its absurdity."
"If the world were clear, art would not exist."
"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."
Seeing how Albert Camus approaches Thinking helps you apply the idea with more precision.
Pick one quote to guide a decision today, then return for deeper perspective.
Search More
Jump to another topic, author, or pillar without leaving the archive.
"Use this collection whenever you need Albert Camus's lens on Thinking."