Albert Camus on Truth

"I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false."

"One does not decide the truth of a thought according to whether it is right-wing or left-wing."

"Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing."

"There is no mystery in humans creation. Will performs this miracle. But at least there is no true creation without a secret."

"Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object."

"Art is the activity that exalts and denies simultaneously. "No artist tolerates reality," says Nietzsche."

"Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it."

"This is the truth," we say. "You can discuss it as much as you want; we aren't interested. But in a few years there'll be the police who will show you we are right."

"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."

"The actor's realm is that of the fleeting."

"Of all the schools of patience and lucidity, creation is the most effective. It is also the staggering evidence of man's sole dignity: the dogged revolt against his condition, perseverance in an effort considered sterile. It calls for a daily effort, self-mastery, a precise estimate of the limits of truth, measure, and strength. It constitutes an ascesis. All that "for nothing," in order to repeat and mark time. But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality."