Albert Camus Quotes

There's one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it's one word long— PEOPLE. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It's people that kill every revolution.

Revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, masses about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive men [i.e. governments], and the men who succumb to their own motive forces.

We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution. Time and time and time again, the people discover that they have merely betrayed themselves into the hands of yet another Pharaoh, who, since he was necessary to put the broken country together, will not let them go.

Change has no constituency and a perceived revolution has even less.

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

All revolutions devour their own children.

The French revolution was… to terminate the strife of kings among themselves, and to commence that between kings and people…. The princes of Europe, who had hitherto had no enemies but themselves, viewed it in the light of a common foe.

Fear of the consequences of the masses’ indignation often induces the class holding parliamentary power to make concessions which the masses would not otherwise have obtained

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

Revolutions are not improvised. They are not made at will by individuals, and not even by the most powerful associations. They come about through force of circumstances, and are independent of any deliberate will or conspiracy.

Whenever we see a state conducted by measures contrary to those made use of in its foundation, we may be assured a great revolution is at hand.

… the most sacred right [revolution] to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.

In really hard times the rules of the game are altered. The inchoate mass begins to stir. It becomes potent, and when it strikes, ... it strikes with incredible emphasis. Those are the rare occasions when a national will emerges from the scattered, specialized, or indifferent blocs of voters who ordinarily elect the politicians. Those are for good or evil the great occasions in a nation's history.

The people in this country have always been afraid of power. Now, maybe the powerful are becoming a little afraid of the people.

Revolutions that cannot resist regicide—the French and the Russian come to mind—have a way of ending badly.

Make the people understand that they will never do anything great, that they will never make revolutions for themselves, for their true happiness, except when there are no rulers involved in any way in their movement: they must not be so distrustful of their own resources, and convince themselves that they, the people, are sufficient to be able to carry out a great undertaking

In the course of time, however, the insolence of the nobles … induced the people to rise…. The nobility, to save a portion of their power, were forced to yield a share of it to the people.

Insurrections made by a few who attempt to raise the people in order to achieve a state of affairs that these very people do not understand, must fear defeat, their inevitable end.

The men who make revolutions are always despised by those who profit from them.

The position of what is generally called great people has of late become extremely difficult. They are more attacked and calumniated, and judged with less indulgence than private individuals. What they have lost in this way, they have not by any means regained in any other. Ever since the revolution of 1790 they are much less secure than they used to be, and the transition from sovereign power to absolute want has been as frequent as sudden.

Suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you...

It’s only at certain points in history that people realize just how much power that they have.