Quote #163

It is not much to be able to do violence when you have been simply preparing for it for years and when violence is more natural to you than thinking. It is a great deal, on the other hand, to face torture and death when you know for a fact that hatred and violence are empty things in themselves. It is a great deal to fight while despising war, to accept losing everything while still preferring happiness, to face destruction while cherishing the idea of a higher civilization.

More from Albert Camus

  1. Is it possible eternally to reject injustice without ceasing to acclaim the nature of man and the beauty of the world? Our answer is yes. T…
  2. Liberty ultimately seems to me, for societies and for individuals, for labor and for culture, the supreme good that governs all others.
  3. Indeed, it is not so much identical conclusions that prove minds to be related as the contradictions that are common to them.
  4. Life can be magnificent and overwhelming - That is its whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.
  5. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invit…
  6. Life is this dichotomy itself, the mind soaring over volcanoes of light, the madness of justice, the extenuating intransigence of moderatio…
  7. In the twentieth century power wears the mask of tragedy.
  8. Live to the point of tears.

All Albert Camus quotes