In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was a group opposed to some tendencies of the surrealistic movement of André Breton. Camus was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature – after Rudyard Kipling – when he became the first African-born writer to receive the award. He is the shortest-lived of any literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.

He is often cited as a proponent of existentialism, the philosophy that he was associated with during his own lifetime, but Camus himself rejected this particular label. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: “No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked…”

1. A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

2. A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

3. After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

4. After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion.

5. At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

6. But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

7. Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.

8. Don’t believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them. All they really want is to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves.

9. 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.

10. In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

11. Integrity has no need of rules.

12. Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

13. Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.

14. You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.