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We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

— Albert Camus

Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage.

Original text (French)

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Notes from Wikiquote

A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)

Topics

Love

More quotes by Albert Camus

The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.

The Rebel (1951)

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.

Helen's Exile (1948)

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

The Rebel (1951)

Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.

All Albert Camus quotes →

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Albert Camus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.