A Plague of the Stranger


Albert Camus
Paris 1947
© Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Albert Camus. A brief posting in the Huffington Post pointed out the significance of today's date--at least somebody is still paying attention!

For me Camus is elusive not because he is abstruse but because he is direct. That he lived and moved about in this world is a rather marvelous thing.

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A few arbitrary quotes from Albert Camus:


Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

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Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

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Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.

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The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

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Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.

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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.

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Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

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

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The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for the post. I've read The Stranger and The Plague and a few others, but I hadn't heard most of those quotes.

--Oscar