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I Lived With The Only Continuity, Day To Day, Of The Me-me-me.
-Albert Camus
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I Lived With The

Albert Camus
...
I Lived With The Only Continuity, Day To Day, Of The Me-me-me.

Understanding the Quote: "i lived with the only continuity, day to day, of the me-me-me...."

This quote by Albert Camus reflects deeply on the theme of selfishness. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Selfishness, Continuity, Day To Day, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Albert Camus interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Albert Camus

Albert Camus is celebrated for insightful thoughts on selfishness and continuity. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Selfishness
Continuity
Day To Day
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Yes, I'm Happy, In Human Terms.
Term
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At That Moment He Knew What His Mother Was Thinking, And That She Loved Him. But He Knew, Too, That To Love Someone Means Relatively Little; Or, Rather, That Love Is Never Strong Enough To Find The Words Befitting It. Thus He And His Mother Would Always Love Each Other Silently. And One Day She--or He--would Die, Without Ever, All Their Lives Long, Having Gone Farther Than This By Way Of Making Their Affection Known.
Mother
Strong
Mean
I Am Alive Again, Now That I Can No Longer Stand To Live.
Life
Despair
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Morality, When Formal, Devours.
Perseverance
Morality
Formal
Too Many Have Dispensed With Generosity In Order To Practice Charity.
Order
Practice
Generosity
Methods Of Thought Which Claim To Give The Lead To Our World In The Name Of Revolution Have Become, In Reality, Ideologies Of Consent And Not Of Rebellion.
Reality
Our World
Uprising
In Oran, As Elsewhere, For Want Of Time And Thought, People Have To Love One Another Without Knowing It.
Time
Knowing
People
Today We Are Always As Ready To Judge As We Are To Fornicate.
Judging
Today
Ready
You Have So Much Inside You, And The Noblest Happiness Of All. Don’t Just Wait For A Man To Come Along. That’s The Mistake So Many Women Make. Find Your Happiness In Yourself.
Mistake
Men
Waiting
To Lose The Touch Of Flowers And Women's Hands Is The Supreme Separation.
Flower
Hands
Separation
In Truth, I Was So Good At Being A Man, With Such Plenitude And Simplicity, That I Thought I Was Something Of A Superman.
Men
Simplicity
Arrogance
We're All Special Cases.
Special
Cases
The Reasoning Is Classic In Its Clarity. If God Does Not Exist, Kirilov Is God. If God Does Not Exist, Kirilov Must Kill Himself. Kirilov Must Therefore Kill Himself To Become God. That Logic Is Absurd, But It Is What Is Needed.
Doe
Logic
Classic
The Poor Man Whom Everyone Speaks Of, The Poor Man Whom Everyone Pities, One Of The Repulsive Poor From Whom Charitable Souls Keep Their Distance, He Has Still Said Nothing. Or, Rather, He Has Spoken Through The Voice Of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At Least, They Said So. And These Shameful Impostures Fed Their Authors. Cruel Irony, The Poor Man Tormented With Hunger Feeds Those Who Plead His Case.
Distance
Men
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The Real Passion Of The Twentieth Century Is Servitude.
Real
Passion
Century
Here Lives A Free Man. Nobody Serves Him.
Men
Free Man
Just As All Thought, And Primarily That Of Non-signification, Signifies Something, So There Is No Art That Has No Signification.
Art
Meaning Of Life
Life Has No Meaning
Politics And The Fate Of Mankind Are Formed By Men Without Ideals And Without Greatness. Those Who Have Greatness Within Them Do Not Go In For Politics.
Fate
Greatness
Destiny
A Man Wants To Earn Money In Order To Be Happy, And His Whole Effort And The Best Of A Life Are Devoted To The Earning Of That Money. Happiness Is Forgotten; The Means Are Taken For The End.
Happiness
Money
Taken
La Ve Rite , Comme La Lumie' Re, Aveugle. Le Mensonge, Au Contraire, Est Un Beau Cre Puscule Qui Met Chaque Objet En Valeur. Truth, Like Light, Blinds. A Lie, On The Contrary, Is A Beautiful Twilight Which Shows The Value Of Each Object.
Beautiful
Lying
Twilight
It Is Better To Burn Than To Disappear.
Disappear
When The Soul Suffers Too Much, It Develops A Taste For Misfortune.
Soul
Suffering
Too Much
Every Minute Of Life Carries With It Its Miraculous Value, And Its Face Of Eternal Youth.
Faces
Youth
Minutes
For If I Try To Seize This Self Of Which I Feel Sure, If I Try To Define And To Summarize It, It Is Nothing But Water Slipping Through My Fingers.
Self
Water
Trying
Of Course, True Love Is Exceptional - Two Or Three Times A Century, More Or Less. The Rest Of The Time There Is Vanity Or Boredom.
Love Is
Vanity
Two
But What Is Happiness Except The Simple Harmony Between A Man And The Life He Leads?
Inspirational
Happiness
Happy
Whatever Prevents You From Doing Your Work Has Become Your Work.
Work
I Am Just Coming Out Of Five Years Of Night, And This Orgy Of Violent Lights Gives Me For The First Time The Impression Of A New Continent. An Enormous, 50-foot High Camel Billboard : A Gi With His Mouth Wide Open Blows Enormous Puffs Of Real Smoke. So Much Bad Taste Hardly Seems Imaginable.
New York
Real
Blow
If The World Were Clear, Art Would Not Exist.
Art
Design
World
Do Not Be Surprised. I Do Not Like Writers And I Cannot Stand Their Lies. They Speak So As Not To Listen To Themselves Speak. If They Did Listen, They Would Know That They Are Nothing And Then They Would No Longer Be Able To Speak.
Lying
Able
Speak
... One Cannot Be Happy In Exile Or In Oblivion. One Cannot Always Be A Stranger. I Want To Return To My Homeland, Make All My Loved Ones Happy. I See No Further Than This.
Want
Return
Stranger
The Truth Is That Everyone Is Bored, And Devotes Himself To Cultivating Habits.
Life
Boredom
Existential
The Mistake That Men Make Is That They Do Not Believe In Theater. Otherwise, They Would Know That Every Man Is Allowed To Play Thecelestial Tragedies And To Become God. All He Has To Do Is Harden His Heart.
Mistake
Believe
Heart
Generally, I Like All Islands. There, It Is Easier To Rule.
Islands
Isolation
Easier
In Order To Be Created, A Work Of Art Must First Make Use Of The Dark Forces Of The Soul
Art
Dark
Order
You Must Have A Love, A Great Love, To Ensure An Alibi At Unjustified Despairs That Conquer All Of Us
Great Love
Despair
Conquer
The Purpose Of A Writer Is To Keep Civilization From Destroying Itself.
Writing
Civilization
Purpose
Once In The Midst Of A Seemingly Endless Winter, I Discovered Within Myself An Invincible Spring.
Spring
Winter
Midst
The First Progressive Step For A Mind Overwhelmed By The Strangeness Of Things Is To Realize That This Feeling Of Strangeness Is Shared With All Men And That Human Reality, In Its Entirety, Suffers From The Distance Which Separates It From The Rest Of The Universe.
Distance
Reality
Men
My Dear, In The Midst Of Hate, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Love. In The Midst Of Tears, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Smile. In The Midst Of Chaos, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Calm. I Realized, Through It All, That… In The Midst Of Winter, I Found There Was, Within Me, An Invincible Summer. And That Makes Me Happy. For It Says That No Matter How Hard The World Pushes Against Me, Within Me, There’s Something Stronger – Something Better, Pushing Right Back. Truly Yours, Albert Camus
Summer
Wisdom
Hate
Art, At Least, Teaches Us That Man Cannot Be Explained By History Alone And That He Also Finds A Reason For His Existence In The Order Of Nature.
Art
Men
Order
A Sub-clerk In The Post-office Is The Equal Of A Conqueror If Consciousness Is Common To Them.
Office
Clerks
Common
Everyone Would Like To Behave Like A Pagan, With Everyone Else Behaving Like A Christian.
Christian
Pagan
Behave
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.
Elements
Unreality
Abstraction
I Have No Idea What's Awaiting Me, Or What Will Happen When This All Ends. For The Moment I Know This: There Are Sick People And They Need Curing.
Compassion
Ideas
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What Made Me Run Away Was Doubtless Not So Much The Fear Of Settling Down, But Of Settling Down Permanently In Something Ugly.
Running
Ugly
Settling
If There Is A Soul, It Is A Mistake To Believe That It Is Given To Us Fully Created. It Is Created Here, Throughout A Whole Life. And Living Is Nothing Else But That Long And Painful Bringing Forth.
Mistake
Believe
Long
Likewise And During Every Day Of An Unillustrious Life, Time Carries Us. But A Moment Always Comes When We Have To Carry It.
Moments
Life Time
Carrie
I Sometimes Need To Write Things Which I Cannot Completely Control But Which Therefore Prove That What Is In Me Is Stronger Than I Am.
Writing
Stronger
Needs
We All Carry Within Us Places Of Exile, Our Crimes, Our Ravages. Our Task Is Not To Unleash Them On The World; It Is To Transform Them In Ourselves And Others.
Tasks
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I Would Rather Live My Life As If There Is A God And Die To Find Out There Isn't, Than Live As If There Isn't And To Die To Find Out That There Is.
If There Is A God
Religion
Living My Life
Fancy Language, Like Poplin, Too Often Conceals An Eczema.
Eczema
Fancy
Dishonesty
I Am Too Much In Love With My Lies And Hypocrisies Not To Confess Them Fervently.
Lying
Hypocrisy
Too Much
I Was Born Poor And Without Religion, Under A Happy Sky, Feeling Harmony, Not Hostility, In Nature. I Began Not By Feeling Torn, But In Plenitude.
Sky
Feelings
Harmony
Virtue Cannot Separate Itself From Reality Without Becoming A Principle Of Evil.
Reality
Evil
Principles
For Those Of Us Who Have Been Thrown Into Hell, Mysterious Melodies And The Torturing Images Of A Vanished Beauty Will Always Bring Us, In The Midst Of Crime And Folly, The Echo Of That Harmonious Insurrection Which Bears Witness, Throughout The Centuries, To The Greatness Of Humanity.
Greatness
Echoes
Humanity
My Life Was Lucky So That I Met, I Loved (and Disappointed) Only Outstanding People.
People
Lucky
Mets
Thus Each Of Us Had To Be Content To Live Only For The Day, Alone Under The Vast Indifference Of The Sky.
Sky
Indifference
Nothing Can Discourage The Appetite For Divinity In The Heart Of Man.
Heart
Men
Divinity
We Get Into The Habit Of Living Before Acquiring The Habit Of Thinking. In That Race Which Daily Hastens Us Towards Death, The Body Maintains Its Irreparable Lead.
Death
Thinking
Race
I Felt That I Had Been Happy And That I Was Happy Again. For Everything To Be Consummated, For Me To Feel Less Alone, I Had Only To Wish That There Be A Large Crowd Of Spectators The Day Of My Execution And That They Greet Me With Cries Of Hate.
Hate
Wish
Crowds
May Heaven Protect Us, Cher Monsieur, From Being Set On A Pedestal By Our Friends!!!
Friendship
Heaven
Pedestal
I Feel More Fellowship With The Defeated Than With Saints.
Saint
Fellowship
Defeated
Some People Talk In Their Sleep. Lecturers Talk While Other People Sleep.
Sleep
Insomnia
People
If Those Whom We Begin To Love Could Know Us As We Were Before Meeting Them They Could Perceive What They Have Made Of Us.
Happiness And Love
Made
Perceive
...the Play Of The Toughest And Most Lucid Mind Are At The Same Time Both Lavished Andsquandered.
Play
Mind
We Have To Live And Let Live In Order To Create What We Are.
Order
Idealism
Live And Let Live
Always There Comes An Hour When One Is Weary Of One's Work And Devotion To Duty, And All One Craves For Is A Loved Face, The Warmth And Wonder Of A Loving Heart.
Heart
Faces
Wonder
The Only Conception Of Freedom I Can Have Is That Of The Prisoner Or The Individual In The Midst Of The State. The Only One I Know Is Freedom Of Thought And Action.
Freedom
Action
Individual
The Desire For Possession Is Insatiable, To Such A Point That It Can Survive Even Love Itself. To Love, Therefore, Is To Sterilize The Person One Loves.
Love
Desire
Possession
The Most Important Thing You Do Everyday You Live Is Deciding Not To Kill Yourself.
Philosophical
Everyday
Important
Truth And Freedom, Having Few Lovers, Are Demanding Mistresses.
Honesty
Integrity
Mistress
After All Perhaps The Greatness Of Art Lies In The Perpetual Tension Between Beauty And Pain, The Love Of Men And The Madness Of Creation, Unbearable Solitude And The Exhausting Crowd, Rejection And Consent.
Art
Pain
Lying
To Govern Means To Pillage, As Everyone Knows.
Mean
Knows
In Short, They Were Gambling On Their Luck, And Luck Is Not To Be Coerced.
Gambling
Luck
A Free Press Can, Of Course, Be Good Or Bad, But, Most Certainly Without Freedom, The Press Will Never Be Anything But Bad.
4th Of July
Media
Be Good
Every Ideology Is Contrary To Human Psychology.
Psychology
Ideology
Humans
For The First Time, The First, I Laid My Heart Open To The Benign Indifference Of The Universe. To Feel It So Like Myself, Indeed So Brotherly, Made Me Realize That I'd Been Happy, And That I Was Happy Still.
Happiness
Heart
Firsts
Modern Conquerors Can Kill, But Do Not Seem To Be Able To Create. Artists Know How To Create But Cannot Really Kill. Murderers Are Only Very Exceptionally Found Among Artists.
Artist
Able
Modern
I Like People Who Dream Or Talk To Themselves Interminably; I Like Them, For They Are Double. They Are Here And Elsewhere.
Dream
People
Elsewhere
How Do You Put Everyone In The Pool, So You Have The Right To Dry Yourself In The Sun?
Dry
Sun
Pool
I Do Not Believe In God And I Am Not An Atheist.
Atheist
Believe
Religion
A Craving For Freedom And Independence Is Generated Only In A Man Still Living On Hope.
Men
Independence
Craving
The Most Knowledgeable Person In One Domain May Be The Most Ignorant In Another.
Knowledgeable Person
Ignorant
May
And Indeed It Could Be Said That Once The Faintest Stirring Of Hope Became Possible, The Dominion Of Plague Was Ended.
Dominion
Said
Plague
History Only Exists, In The Final Analysis, For God.
History
Finals
Analysis
Likewise, Every Time Somebody Interjects To Speak Of My Honesty There Is Someone Who Quivers Inside Me.
Honesty
Speak
Quiver
Mostly, I Could Tell, I Made Him Feel Uncomfortable. He Didn't Understand Me, And He Was Sort Of Holding It Against Me. I Felt The Urge To Reassure Him That I Was Like Everybody Else, Just Like Everybody Else. But Really There Wasn't Much Point, And I Gave Up The Idea Out Of Laziness.
Ideas
Laziness
Made
Knowing What [christ] Knew , Knowing All About Mankind--ah! Who Would Have Thought That The Crime Is Not So Much To Make Others Die, But To Die Oneself--confronted Day And Night With His Innocent Crime, It Became Too Difficult To Go On. It Was Better To Get It Over With, To Not Defend Himself, To Die, In Order Not To Be The Only One To Have Survived, And To Go Elsewhere, Where, Perhaps, He Would Be Supported.
God
Night
Order
For Who Would Dare To Assert That Eternal Happiness Can Compensate For A Single Moment's Human Suffering
Suffering
Eternal Happiness
Moments
In A World That Has Ceased To Believe In Sin, The Artist Is Responsible For The Preaching.
Believe
Artist
World
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.
Love
Friendship
Happy
Once Crime Was As Solitary As A Cry Of Protest; Now It Is As Universal As Science. Yesterday It Was Put On Trial; Today It Determines The Law.
Law
Yesterday
Trials
If Nietzsche Is Correct, That To Shame A Man Is To Kill Him, Then Any Honest Attempt At Autobiography Will Be An Act Of Self-destruction.
Men
Self
Honest
The Revolutionary Government Was Required To Become The Government Of The War.
War
Government
Revolutionary
What Doesn't Kill You Make You Stronger And Stronger
Stronger
Makes You Stronger
It Is Not Rebellion Itself Which Is Noble But The Demands It Makes Upon Us.
Noble
Demand
Rebellion
What The World Expects Of Christians Is That Christians Should Speak Out, Loud And Clear... In Such A Way That Never A Doubt, Never The Slightest Doubt, Could Rise In The Heart Of The Simplest Man.
Christian
Heart
Men
To Create Is Likewise To Give A Shape To One's Fate
Fate
Giving
Shapes
In Order To Understand The World, One Has To Turn Away From It On Occasion.
Order
Solitude
World
In Order To Exist, Man Must Rebel.
Men
Order
Challenges
The Struggle To The Top Alone Will Make A Human Heart Swell.
Struggle
Heart
Humans
It Would Be Unjust, And Moreover Utopian, For Shakespeare To Direct The Shoemakers' Union. But It Would Be Equally Disastrous Forthe Shoemakers' Union To Ignore Shakespeare.
Would Be
Unions
Unjust
The Act Of Love . . . Is A Confession. Selfishness Screams Aloud, Vanity Shows Off, Or Else True Generosity Reveals Itself.
Love
Selfish
Vanity
What Is A Firm Hand To Me, Of What Use To Me Is This Astonishing Power If I Cannot Change The Order Of Things, If I Cannot Make The Sun Set In The East, That Suffering Diminish And That Beings No Longer Die?
Power
Hands
Order
The Realization That Life Is Absurd And Cannot Be An End, But Only A Beginning. This Is A Truth Nearly All Great Minds Have Taken As Their Starting Point. It Is Not This Discovery That Is Interesting, But Theconsequences And Rules Of Action Drawn From It.
Life
Taken
Discovery
This Very Heart Which Is Mine Will Forever Remain Indefinable To Me. Between The Certainty I Have Of My Existence And The Content I Try To Give To That Assurance, The Gap Will Never Be Filled. Forever I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself.
Heart
Giving
Forever
Sometimes, From Beyond The Skycrapers, The Cry Of A Tugboat Finds You In Your Insomnia, And You Remember That This Desert Of Iron And Cement Is An Island.
New York
Insomnia
Islands
The End Of Their Passion Consists Of Loving Uselessly At The Moment When It Is Pointless.
Passion
Happiness And Love
Moments
No Longer Were There Individual Destinies; Only A Collective Destiny, Made Of Plague And Emotions Shared By All.
Destiny
Emotion
Individual
... We Need The Sweet Pain Of Anticipation To Tell Us We Are Really Alive.
Sweet
Pain
Needs
I See Many People Die Because They Judge That Life Is Not Worth Living. I See Others Paradoxically Getting Killed For The Ideas Or Illusions That Give Them A Reason For Living (what Is Called A Reason For Living Is Also An Excellent Reason For Dying). I Therefore Conclude That The Meaning Of Life Is The Most Urgent Of Questions.
Ideas
People
Giving
Happiness Implied A Choice, And Within That Choice A Concerted Will, A Lucid Desire.
Happiness
Choices
Desire
Being Is Good, But Getting Rich Is Better.... If The Gods Had Only The Riches Of Men's Adoration, They Would Be As Poor As Poor Caligula.
Money
Men
Would Be
I Knew A Pure Heart Who Refused Tot Be Mistrustful.... He Had Written At His Doorstep: "from Wherever You Are, Enter And Be Welcome". Who Do You Think Responded To This Lovely Invitation? The Militia, Who Made Themselves At Home And Gutted Him.
Trust
Home
Heart
How Many Crimes Are Permitted Simply Because Their Authors Could Not Endure Being Wrong.
Integrity
Law
Justice
There Is Not A Single True Work Of Art That Has Not In The End Added To The Inner Freedom Insight And Life Of Each Person Who Has Known And Loved It.
Art
Ends
Insight
Don't Lies Eventually Lead To The Truth? And Don't All My Stories, True Or False, Tend Toward The Same Conclusion? Don't They All Have The Same Meaning? So What Does It Matter Whether They Are True Or False If, In Both Cases, They Are Significant Of What I Have Been And What I Am? Sometimes It Is Easier To See Clearly Into The Liar Than Into The Man Who Tells The Truth. Truth, Like Light, Blinds. Falsehood, On The Contrary, Is A Beautiful Twilight That Enhances Every Object.
Beautiful
Liars
Lying
One Recognizes One's Course By Discovering The Paths That Stray From It.
Path
Discovering
Recognise
All Systems Of Morality Are Based On The Idea That An Action Has Consequences That Legitimize Or Cancel It. A Mind Imbued With The Absurd Merely Judges That Those Consequences Must Be Considered Calmly.
Actions Have Consequences
Ideas
Judging
A Living Man Can Be Enslaved And Reduced To The Historic Condition Of An Object. But If He Dies In Refusing To Be Enslaved, He Reaffirms The Existence Of Another Kind Of Human Nature Which Refuses To Be Classified As An Object.
Men
Kind
Human Nature
I Know Simply That The Sky Will Last Longer Than I.
Sky
Lasts
Knows
Working Conditions For Me Have Always Been Those Of The Monastic Life: Solitude And Frugality. Except For Frugality, They Are Contrary To My Nature, So Much So That Work Is A Violence I Do To Myself.
Solitude
Violence
Working Conditions
For The Existentials, Negation Is Their God. To Be Precise, That God Is Maintained Only Through The Negation Of Human Reason. But, Like Suicides, Gods Change With Men.
Suicide
Men
Atheism
Some Cry: 'love Me!!' Others: 'don't Love Me!!' But A Certain Genus, The Worst And Most Unhappy, Cries: 'don't Love Me And Be Faithful To Me!!'
Love
Faith
Unhappy
It Is Easy To Shield The Outer Body From Poisoned Arrows, But It Is Impossible To Shield The Mind From The Poisoned Darts That Originate Within Itself. Greed, Anger, Foolishness And The Infatuations Of Egoism - These Four Poisoned Darts Originate Within The Mind And Infect It With Deadly Poison.
Fear
Arrows
Greed
Life Is A Sum Of All Your Choices". So, What Are You Doing Today?
Decisions You Make
Choices Made
Today
Psychology Is Action, Not Thinking About Oneself.
Thinking
Psychology
Action
There Was A Time When I Didn’t At Any Minute Have The Slightest Idea How I Could Reach The Next One. Yes, One Can Wage War In This World, Ape Love, Torture One’s Fellow Man, Or Merely Say Evil Of One’s Neighbour While Knitting. But, In Certain Cases, Carrying On, Merely Continuing, Is Superhuman.
War
Men
Ideas
A Novel Is Never Anything But A Philosophy Expressed In Images. And In A Good Novel The Philosophy Has Disappeared Into The Images.
Philosophy
Novel
I Felt As I Hadn't Felt For Ages. I Had A Foolish Desire To Burst Into Tears. For The First Time I'd Realized How All These People Loathed Me.
People
Tears
Age
There Is Only One Class Of Men, The Privileged Class
Men
Class
Privileged
For The First Time In A Long Time I Thought About Maman. I Felt As If I Understood Why At The End Of Her Life She Had Taken A 'fiancé,' Why She Had Played At Beginning Again. Even There, In That Home Where Lives Were Fading Out, Evening Was A Kind Of Wistful Respite. So Close To Death, Maman Must Have Felt Free Then And Ready To Live It All Again. Nobody, Nobody Had The Right To Cry Over Her. And I Felt Ready To Live It All Again Too.
Taken
Home
Long
If Absolute Truth Belongs To Anyone In This World, It Certainly Does Not Belong To The Man Or Party That Claims To Possess It.
Life
Truth
Party
I Was Comfortable In All, I Admit, But At The Same Time, Nothing Satisfied Me. Each Joy Made Me Seek Another.
Joy
Made
Discontent
Absolute Virtue Is Impossible And The Republic Of Forgiveness Leads, With Implacable Logic, To The Republic Of The Guillotine.
Forgiveness
Republic
Impossible
Retaliation Is Related To Nature And Instinct, Not To Law. Law, By Definition, Cannot Obey The Same Rules As Nature.
Law
Punishment
Intuition
Because,' Cormery Went On, 'when I Was Very Young, Very Foolish, And Very Much Alone ... You Paid Attention To Me And, Without Seeming To, You Opened For Me The Door To Everything I Love In The World.
Doors
Attention
World
The World In Which We Were Called To Exist Was An Absurd World, And There Was No Other In Which We Could Take Refuge.
World
Absurd
Refuge
Believe Me, Religions Are On The Wrong Track The Moment They Moralize And Fulminate Commandments. God Is Not Needed To Create Guilt Or To Punish. Our Fellow Men Suffice, Aided By Ourselves.
Believe
Men
Track
I Make Myself Strict Rules In Order To Correct My Nature. But It Is My Nature That I Finally Obey.
Order
Strict
Strict Rules
I Felt As Though I Was Partly Unlearning What I Had Never Learned And Yet Knew So Well: I Mean, How To Live.
Mean
Wells
Felt
And Then Came Human Beings; Humans Wanted To Cling But There Was Nothing To Cling To.
Wanted
Humans
Human Beings
Revolt And Revolution Both Wind Up At The Same Crossroads: The Police, Or Folly.
Wind
Police
Revolution
It Is Better For The Intellectual Not To Talk All The Time. To Begin With, It Would Exhaust Him, And, Above All, It Would Keep Him From Thinking. He Must Create If He Can, First And Foremost, Especially If His Creation Does Not Side-step The Problems Of His Time.
Thinking
Intellectual
Doe
Proof Is Never Definitive, After All; One Has To Begin Again With Each New Person.
Proof
Begin Again
Persons
A Man Without Ethics Is A Wild Beast Loosed Upon This World.
Life
Honesty
Integrity
There Is But One Freedom, To Put Oneself Right With Death. After That Everything Is Possible.
Death
Oneself
To Be Famous, In Fact, One Has Only To Kill One's Landlady.
Facts
Fame
Parallelogram
You Cannot Acquire Experience By Making Experiments. You Cannot Create Experience. You Must Undergo It.
Inspirational
Science
Technology
Only It Takes Time To Be Happy. A Lot Of Time. Happiness, Too, Is A Long Patience.
Happiness
Time
Long
Beauty, No Doubt, Does Not Make Revolutions. But A Day Will Come When Revolutions Will Have Need Of Beauty.
Doubt
Doe
Needs
I Have A Very Old And Very Faithful Attachment For Dogs. I Like Them Because They Always Forgive.
Dog
Attachment
Owning A Pet
Youth Is Above All A Collection Of Possibilities.
Youth
Possibility
Collections
Men Are Never Really Willing To Die Except For The Sake Of Freedom: Therefore They Do Not Believe In Dying Completely.
Death
Believe
Men
Beginning To Think Is Beginning To Be Undermined. Society Has But Little Connection With Such Beginnings. The Worm Is In Man's Heart. That Is Where It Must Be Sought. One Must Follow And Understand This Fatal Game That Leads From Lucidity In The Face Of Existence To Flight From Light.
Heart
Men
Thinking
I'd Have Given Ten Conversations With Einstein For A First Meeting With A Pretty Chorus Girl.
Girl
Personality
Firsts
Those Who Write Clearly Have Readers.
Writing
Reader
Writers And Writing
One Of The Only Coherent Philosophical Positions Is Thus Revolt. It Is A Constant Confrontation Between Man And His Own Obscurity.
Philosophical
Men
Obscurity
By Definition, A Government Has No Conscience. Sometimes It Has A Policy, But Nothing More.
Government
Definitions
Politics
He Had Been Bored, That's All, Bored Like Most People. Hence He Had Made Himself Out Of Whole Cloth A Life Full Of Complications And Drama. Something Must Happen - And That Explains Most Human Commitments. Something Must Happen, Even Loveless Slavery, Even War Or Death. Hurray Then For Funerals!
War
Drama
Commitment
More And More, Revolution Has Found Itself Delivered Into The Hands Of Its Bureaucrats And Doctrinaires On The One Hand, And To The Enfeebled And Bewildered Masses On The Other.
Hands
Revolution
Rebellious
All Men Have A Sweetness In Their Life. That Is What Helps Them Go On. It Is Towards That They Turn When They Feel Too Worn Out.
Happiness
Encouragement
Goes On
For Rich People, The Sky Is Just An Extra, A Gift Of Nature. The Poor, On The Other Hand, Can See It As It Is, A Gift Of Infinite Grace.
Hands
Sky
People
False Judges Are Held Up In The World's Admiration And I Alone Know The True Ones.
Judging
World
Admiration
We Turn Our Backs On Nature; We Are Ashamed Of Beauty. Our Wretched Tragedies Have A Smell Of The Office Clinging To Them, And The Blood That Trickles From Them Is The Color Of Printer's Ink.
Blood
Color
Smell
Most Men Are Like Me. They Cannot Live In A Universe Where The Most Bizarre Thought Can In One Second Enter Into The Realm Of Reality--where, Most Often, It Does Enter, Like A Knife In A Heart.
Heart
Reality
Men
If Christianity Is Pessimistic As To Man, It Is Optimistic As To Human Destiny. Well, I Can Say That, Pessimistic As To Human Destiny, I Am Optimistic As To Man.
Optimistic
Destiny
Men
If Man Is Reduced To Being Nothing But A Character In History, He Has No Other Choice But To Subside Into The Sound And Fury Of Acompletely Irrational History Or To Endow History With The Form Of Human Reason.
Character
Men
History
The Society Based On Production Is Only Productive, Not Creative.
Knowledge
Creativity
Ideas
Don't Let Them Tell Us Stories.
Stories
You Will Never Live If You Are Looking For The Meaning Of Life.
Life
Happiness
Happy
Men Must Live And Create. Live To The Point Of Tears.
Inspirational
Life
Men
[love] Is The Type Of Disease That Spares Neither The Intelligent Nor The Idiotic.
Love
Intelligent
Stupidity
When One Has No Character, One Has To Apply A Method. Here It Did Wonders Incontrovertibly, And I Am Living On The Site Of One Of The Greatest Crimes In Human History.
Character
Wonder
Crime
All Healthy Men Have Thought Of Their Own Suicide
Suicide
Health
Men
He Had Opened His Heart To The Sublime Indifference Of The Universe
Heart
Sublime
Indifference
In Our Society, Any Man Who Doesn't Cry At His Mother's Funeral Is Liable To Be Condemned To Death.
Mother
Men
Funeral
One Always Has Exaggerated Ideas About What One Doesn't Know.
Ideas
Knows
Exaggerated
…. Query: How Contrive Not To Waste One's Time? Answer: By Being Fully Aware Of It All The While. Ways In Which This Can Be Done: By Spending One's Days On An Uneasy Chair In A Dentist's Waiting-room; By Remaining On One's Balcony All Of A Sunday Afternoon; By Listening To Lectures In A Language On Doesn't Know; By Traveling By The Longest And Least-convenient Train Routes, And Of Course Standing All The Way; By Lining Up At The Box-office Of Theaters And Then Not Buying A Seat; And So Forth.
Sunday
Waiting Rooms
Office
Whereas The Greeks Gave To Will The Boundaries Of Reason, We Have Come To Put The Will's Impulse In The Very Center Of Reason, Which Has, As A Result, Become Deadly.
Greek
Free Will
Boundaries
The Slave And Those Whose Present Life Is Miserable And Who Can Find No Consolation In The Heavens Are Assured That At Least The Future Belongs To Them. The Future Is The Only Kind Of Property That The Masters Willingly Concede To The Slaves.
Heaven
Kind
Life Is
But Above All, In Order To Be, Never Try To Seem.
Order
Trying
Seems
Conscious Of Not Being Able To Separate Myself From My Time, I Have Decided To Become Part Of It.
Able
Conscious
My Time
I Have No Friends, I Only Have Accomplices Now. On The Other Hand, My Accomplices Are More Numerous Than My Friends: They Are The Human Race.
Race
Hands
No Friends
Every Time I Hear A Political Speech Or I Read Those Of Our Leaders, I Am Horrified At Having, For Years, Heard Nothing Which Sounded Human. It Is Always The Same Words Telling The Same Lies.
Lying
Years
Leader
The Future Is The Only Transcendental Value For Men Without God.
Men
Transcendental
Without God
Analysis Of Rebellion Leads At Least To The Suspicion That, Contrary To The Postulates Of Contemporary Thought, A Human Nature Does Exist, As The Greeks Believed. Why Rebel If There Is Nothing Permanent In Oneself Worth Preserving? ... Rebellion, Though Apparently Negative, Since It Creates Nothing, Is Profoundly Positive In That It Reveals The Part Of Man Which Must Always Be Defended.
Self Worth
Men
Greek
We Are All Exceptional Cases. We All Want To Appeal Against Something! Each Of Us Insists On Being Innocent At All Cost, Even If He Has To Accuse The Whole Human Race And Heaven Itself.
Race
Heaven
Cost
To Abandon Oneself To Principles Is Really To Die - And To Die For An Impossible Love Which Is The Contrary Of Love.
Love
Principles
Impossible
I Know [my Label], In Any Case: A Double Face, A Charming Janus, And Underneath, The House Motto: "be Wary". On My Business Cards:"jean-baptiste Clamence, Actor".
Hypocrisy
House
Labels
But What Does It Mean, The Plague? It's Life, That's All.
Mean
Doe
Plague
Life Can Be Magnificent And Overwhelming -- That Is The Whole Tragedy. Without Beauty, Love, Or Danger It Would Almost Be Easy To Live.
Life
Tragedy
Easy
Having Money Is A Way Of Being Free Of Money.
Money
Being Free
Way
What’s True Of All The Evils In The World Is True Of Plague As Well. It Helps Men To Rise Above Themselves.
Men
Evil
World
On The Whole, Men Are More Good Than Bad; That, However, Isn't The Real Point. But They Are More Or Less Ignorant, And It Is This That We Call Vice Or Virtue; The Most Incorrigible Vice Being That Of An Ignorance That Fancies It Knows Everything And Therefore Claims For Itself The Right To Kill. The Soul Of The Murderer Is Blind; And There Can Be No True Goodness Nor True Love Without The Utmost Clear-sightedness.
Real
Ignorance
Men
At Any Street Corner The Feeling Of Absurdity Can Strike Any Man In The Face.
Men
Feelings
Faces
Turbulent Childhood, Adolescent Daydreams In The Drone Of The Bus's Motor, Mornings, Unspoiled Girls, Beaches, Young Muscles Always At The Peak Of Their Effort, Evening's Slight Anxiety In A Sixteen-year-old-heart, Lust For Life, Fame, And Ever The Same Sky Through The Years, Unfailing In Strength And Light, Itself Insatiable, Consuming One By One Over A Period Of Months The Victims Stretched Out In The Form Of Crosses On The Beach At The Deathlike Hour Of Noon.
Girl
Beach
Morning
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.
Teacher
Retirement
Book
A Sub-clerk In The Post Office Is The Equal Of A Conqueror If Consciousness Is Common To Them. All Experiences Are Indifferent In This Regard. There Are Some That Do Either A Service Or A Disservice To Man. They Do Him A Service If He Is Conscious. Otherwise, That Has No Importance: A Man's Failures Imply Judgment, Not Of Circumstances, But Of Himself.
Men
Office
Clerks
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