Nobel Prize for Literature winning Albert Camus (7th November 1913 – 4th January 1960) was a French-Algerian philosopher, author and journalist. His works contributed to the rise of a philosophy known as absurdism and would go on to be remembered for his essays, nonfiction, short stories and for novels such as The Stranger, and the Plague among others.
Camus was born in French Algeria to poverty stricken parents in the Belcourt region of Algiers. Despite his family’s poverty, and his mother’s illiteracy, Camus attended the University of Algiers where a bout of tuberculosis in 1930 ended his footballing career. From here he studied philosophy, presenting his first thesis in 1936, he would go on to write essays, novels and nonfiction works and his writings are still heavily studied today.
Today we’re sharing some of our favourite quotations from Camus, who was French in language, and so our quotations will be translations:
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
“When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune.”
“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth”
“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”
“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
“Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.”
“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
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