Albert Camus, Notebooks 1935-1942 Quotes

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.

To be born to create, to love, to win at games is to be born to live in time of peace. But war teaches us to lose everything and become what we were not. It all becomes a question of style.

You must realize that men make war as much with the enthusiasm of those who want it as with the despair of those who reject it with all their soul.

How unbearable, for women, is the tenderness which a man can give them without love. For men, how bittersweet this is.

The misery and greatness of this world: it offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it.

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.

If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: "I recognize only one duty, and that is to love.