Albert Camus Quotes

I am a person who is inclined to define relations between individuals based on principles.

I won't do things for money. I can't.

All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.

The grand principles of virtue and honor, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same the world over: and wherethese principles are concerned, the right or wrong of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the enlightened mind.

The principles of ethics come from our own nature as social, reasoning beings.

We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.

I want to live out principles that became a part of my life in my 40s, 50s, and 60s. One principle is the universality of freedom.

There's also a part of me that's self-destructive, and another part that's a hero who's going to stand up for a principle.

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

In morality, man treats himself not as individuum but as dividuum.

Virtue is its own punishment.

Renunciation is the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached which had not renunciation for its basis.

I want to die a slave to principles. Not to men.

Every person professes to love good and hate evil, but in his actions his real preferences emerges.

We all have bad things inside us, and we all choose either to give in to those bad things or to fight them.

Morals - all correct moral laws - derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.

The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

The great difficulty about keeping the Ten Commandments is that no man can keep them and be a gentleman.

All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.

The very essence of our civilization is that we give a paramount place to morality in all our affairs, public or private.

Neutrality is no favorite with Providence, for we are so formed that it is scarcely possible for us to stand neuter in our hearts, although we may deem it prudent to appear so in our actions

It's my opinion that every one I know has morals, though I wouldn't like to ask. I know I have. But I'd rather teach them than practice them any day. "Give them to others"-that's my motto.

All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.