The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.
The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.
The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.
Every man needs slaves like he needs clean air. To rule is to breathe, is it not? And even the most disenfranchised get to breathe. The lowest on the social scale have their spouses or their children.
For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.
How can sincerity be a condition of friendship? A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.
I know of only one duty, and that is to love.
Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.
In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.