Albert Camus
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"Albert Camus" was a French Nobel Prize in Literature/Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel (book)/The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one, even during his own lifetime. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Jean-Paul Sartre/Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked...".

Camus was born in French rule in Algeria/French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family, and studied at the University of Algiers. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement after his split with Garry Davis's Citizens of the World movement. The formation of this group, according to Camus, was intended to "denounce two ideologies found in both the Soviet Union/USSR and the USA" regarding their idolatry of technology.

Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times".

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But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically gettin killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.

A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to bet better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

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

Live to the point of tears.

There are always reasons for murdering a man. But there is no justification for his existence.

Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.

We only know of one duty, and that is to love.

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. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.

A slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

If there is a sin against life, it consist perhaps not so much in despairing of life as hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Albert Camus .

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

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

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

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.

It is natural to give a clear view of the world after accepting the idea that it must be clear.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

Love is the kind of illness that does not spare the intelligent or the dull.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

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

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

In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

I have never been able, really, to regret anything in all my life. I have always been far much too absorbed in the present moment or the immediate future to think back.

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

In the depth of winter, I learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.