Geburtstag: 7. November 1913
Todesdatum: 4. Januar 1960
Albert Camus [alˈbɛːʀ kaˈmy] war ein französischer Schriftsteller und Philosoph. 1957 erhielt er für sein publizistisches Gesamtwerk den Nobelpreis für Literatur. Camus gilt als einer der bekanntesten und bedeutendsten französischen Autoren des 20. Jahrhunderts.
— Albert Camus
Brot und Freiheit. Ansprache vom 10. Mai 1953 an der Arbeitsbörse von St-Etienne. In: Fragen der Zeit. Deutsch von Guido G. Meister. Rowohlt Verlag 1960. S. 100
— Albert Camus
Der Fall. Deutsch von Guido G. Meister. © Rowohlt Verlag 1957. Bibliothek Suhrkamp 1965. S. 55
— Albert Camus
Der Mythos des Sisyphos, Rowohlt, Hamburg 1995, S. 99
— Albert Camus
Der Mythos des Sisyphos, S. 46, ISBN 3499227657
— Albert Camus
Der Mensch in der Revolte, zitiert in Morvan Lebesque: Albert Camus in Selbstzeugnisse und Bilddokumenten. Deutsch von Guido G. Meister. Rowohlts Monographien 1960. S. 109
— Albert Camus
Der Fall. Deutsch von Guido G. Meister. © Rowohlt Verlag 1957. Bibliothek Suhrkamp 1965. S. 55
— Albert Camus
Der Mythos von Sisyphos. Deutsch von Hans Georg Brenner und Wolfdietrich Rasch. Karl Rauch Verlag Düsseldorf. 68. Tausend 1960. S. 46
— Albert Camus
Der Mythos des Sisyphos, Übersetzt von Vincent von Wroblewsky, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 12. Auflage, Hamburg, 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-22765-3, S. 160
— Albert Camus
Context: We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.
"Helen's Exile" (1948)
— Albert Camus
Context: Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any people for twenty years. But for this lesson to get through and convince those in the West who shut their eyes and ears, it was necessary, and it can be no comfort to us, for the people of Hungary to shed so much blood which is already drying in our memories. In Europe's isolation today, we have only one way of being true to Hungary, and that is never to betray, among ourselves and everywhere, what the Hungarian heroes died for, never to condone, among ourselves and everywhere, even indirectly, those who killed them. It would indeed be difficult for us to be worthy of such sacrifices.
The Blood of the Hungarians (1957)
— Albert Camus
Context: There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning.
— Albert Camus
Context: If Nietzsche and Hegel serve as alibis to the masters of Dachau and Karaganda, that does not condemn their entire philosophy. But it does lead to the suspicion that one aspect of their thought, or of their logic, can lead to these appalling conclusions.
— Albert Camus
Context: A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. And in a good novel, the whole of the philosophy has passed into the images. But if once the philosophy overflows the characters and action, and therefore looks like a label stuck on the work, the plot loses its authenticity and the novel its life. Nevertheless, a work that is to last cannot dispense with profound ideas. And this secret fusion between experiences and ideas, between life and reflection on the meaning of life, is what makes the great novelist.
Review of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, published in the newspaper Alger Républicain (20 October 1938), p. 5; reprinted in Selected Essays and Notebooks, translated and edited by Philip Thody
— Albert Camus
Context: Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard. It steels itself to attain the absolute and authority; it wants to transfigure the world before having exhausted it, to set it to rights before having understood it. Whatever it may say, our era is deserting this world.
"Helen's Exile" (1948)
— Albert Camus
Context: 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. <!-- 159
— Albert Camus
Context: At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten. This must be clung to because the whole consequence of a life can depend on it. The irrational, the human nostalgia, and the absurd that is born of their encounter — these are the three characters in the drama that must necessarily end with all the logic of which an existence is capable.
