If I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up.
Submitted on Wed, 2010-01-20 19:56 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2448 from The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. They at least don't have any ulterior motives.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:31 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #2198 from The Fall by Albert Camus
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. And, from this point of view, death is no more worthy of respect than Nero or the inspector at my local police station.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1980 from Notebooks 1935-1951 by Albert Camus
I'll tell you a big secret, mon cher. Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1973 from The Fall by Albert Camus
I found it difficult to answer his question. I probably loved mother quite a lot, but that didn't mean anything. To a certain extent all normal people sometimes wished their loved ones were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me, looking very flustered. He made me promise not to say that at the hearing.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1804 from The Outsider by Albert Camus
I'm sorry, Zagreus, but it's been a long time since I talked about certain things. So I don't know any more---or I'm not sure. When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears. Like that sky. It's rain and sun both, noon and midnight. You know, Zagreus, I think of the lips I've kissed, and the wretched child I was, and of the madness of life and the ambition that sometimes carries me away. I'm all these things at once. I'm sure there are times you wouldn't even recognize me. Extreme in misery, excessive in happiness---I can't say it.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1748 from A Happy Death by Albert Camus
Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came the human beings, they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate - for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1671 from The Fall by Albert Camus
A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1672 from A Happy Death by Albert Camus
Sometimes it takes more courage to live than to shoot yourself.
...How poor in invention men are! They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic and vulgar motives to your action.
Submitted on Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — Gabrielle
Link to full quote: Quote #1624 from The Fall by Albert Camus
