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The Society Of Merchants Can Be Defined As A Society In Which Things Disappear In Favor Of Signs. When A Ruling Class Measures Its Fortunes, Not By The Acre Of Land Or The Ingot Of Gold, But By The Number Of Figures Corresponding Ideally To A Certain Number Of Exchange Operations, It Thereby Condemns Itself To Setting A Certain Kind Of Humbug At The Center Of Its Experience And Its Universe. A Society Founded On Signs Is, In Its Essence, An Artificial Society In Which Man's Carnal Truth Is Handled As Something Artificial.

-Albert Camus

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The Society Of Merchants

Albert Camus

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The Society Of Merchants Can Be Defined As A Society In Which Things Disappear In Favor Of Signs. When A Ruling Class Measures Its Fortunes, Not By The Acre Of Land Or The Ingot Of Gold, But By The Number Of Figures Corresponding Ideally To A Certain Number Of Exchange Operations, It Thereby Condemns Itself To Setting A Certain Kind Of Humbug At The Center Of Its Experience And Its Universe. A Society Founded On Signs Is, In Its Essence, An Artificial Society In Which Man's Carnal Truth Is Handled As Something Artificial.

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Sometimes At Night I Would Sleep Open-eyed Underneath A Sky Dripping With Stars. I Was Alive Then.

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Meaning Of Life

Yes, Everything Is Simple. It's People Who Complicate Things.

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Poor And Free Rather Than Rich And Enslaved. Of Course, Men Want To Be Both Rich And Free, And This Is What Leads Them At Times To Be Poor And Enslaved.

In Art, Rebellion Is Consummated And Perpetuated In The Act Of Real Creation, Not In Criticism Or Commentary.

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Maman Died Today. Or Yesterday Maybe, I Don't Know. I Got A Telegram From The Home: 'mother Deceased. Funeral Tomorrow. Faithfully Yours.' That Doesn't Mean Anything. Maybe It Was Yesterday.

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Each Generation Doubtless Feels Called Upon To Reform The World. Mine Knows That It Will Not Reform It, But Its Task Is Perhaps Even Greater. It Consists In Preventing The World From Destroying Itself.

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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.

Then We Understand That Rebellion Cannot Exist Without A Strange Form Of Love. Those Who Find No Rest In God Or In History Are Condemned To Live For Those Who, Like Themselves, Cannot Live; In Fact, For The Humiliated.

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What I Believe To Be True I Must Therefore Preserve. What Seems To Me So Obvious, Even Against Me, I Must Support.

To Me, Art Is Not A Solitary Delight. It Is A Means Of Stirring The Greatest Number Of Men By Providing Them With A Privileged Image Of Our Common Joys And Woes.

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.

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What Did It Matter If He Existed For Two Or For Twenty Years? Happiness Was The Fact That He Had Existed.

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The Most Knowledgeable Person In One Domain May Be The Most Ignorant In Another.

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Man Cannot Do Without Beauty, And This Is What Our Era Pretends To Want To Disregard.

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Great Ideas Come Into The World As Gently As Doves.

A Man Without Ethics Is A Wild Beast Loosed Upon This World.

One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy.

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But,' I Reminded Myself, 'it's Common Knowledge That Life Isn't Worth Living, Anyhow.

Common Knowledge

When One Has Extensively Pondered About Men, As A Career Or As A Vocation, One Sometimes Feels Nostalgic For Primates. At Least They Do Not Have Ulterior Motives.

Likewise, Every Time Somebody Interjects To Speak Of My Honesty There Is Someone Who Quivers Inside Me.

Retaliation Is Related To Nature And Instinct, Not To Law. Law, By Definition, Cannot Obey The Same Rules As Nature.

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Our Reason Has Driven All Away. Alone At Last, We End Up Ruling Over A Desert.

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.

The Most Exhausting Effort In My Life Has Been To Suppress My Own Nature In Order To Make It Serve My Biggest Plans.

The Words That Reverberate For Us At The Confines Of This Long Adventure Of Rebellion Are Not Formulas For Optimism, For Which We Have No Possible Use In The Extremities Of Our Unhappiness, But Words Of Courage And Intelligence Which, On The Shores Of The Eternal Seas, Even Have The Qualities Of Virtue.

Man Stands Face To Face With The Irrational. He Feels Within Him His Longing For Happiness And For Reason. The Absurd Is Born Of This Confrontation Between The Human Need And The Unreasonable Silence Of The World.

Does The End Justify The Means? That Is Possible. But What Will Justify The End? To That Question, Which Historical Thought Leaves Pending, Rebellion Replies: The Means.

When The Throne Of God Is Overturned, The Rebel Realizes That It Is Now His Own Responsibility To Create The Justice, Order, And Unity That He Sought In Vain Within His Own Condition, And In This Way To Justify The Fall Of God. Then Begins The Desperate Effort To Create, At The Price Of Crime And Murder If Necessary, The Dominion Of Man.

Those Who Write Clearly Have Readers.

Writers And Writing

Je Puis Nier Une Chose Sans Me Croire Obligé De La Salir Ou De Retirer Aux Autres Le Droit D'y Croire.

Why Should It Be Essential To Love Rarely In Order To Love Much?

My Dear Friend, We Mustn't Give Them Even The Slightest Excuse To Judge Us! Otherwise, We End Up In Pieces.

Rebellion, In Man, Is The Refusal To Be Treated As An Object And To Be Reduced To Simple Historical Terms. It Is The Affirmation Of A Nature Common To All Men, Which Eludes The World Of Power.

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.

Real Generosity Toward The Future Lies In Giving All To The Present.

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.

I Used To Advertise My Loyalty And I Don't Believe There Is A Single Person I Loved That I Didn't Eventually Betray.

Yes, I Know What Passion Would Fill Me With All Its Power. Before, I Was Too Young. I Got In The Way. Now I Know That Acting And Loving And Suffering Is Living, Of Course, But It’s Only Living Insofar As You Can Be Transparent And Accept Your Fate, Like The Unique Reflection Of A Rainbow Of Joys And Passions Which Is The Same For Everyone.

Blessed Are The Hearts That Can Bend; They Shall Never Be Broken.

“to Think The Way You Do,” He Said Smiling, “you Have To Be A Man Who Lives Either On A Tremendous Despair, Or On A Tremendous Hope.” “on Both, Perhaps.”

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.

What Really Counted Was The Possibility Of Escape, A Leap To Freedom, Out Of The Implacable Ritual, A Wild Run For It That Would Give Whatever Chance For Hope There Was. Of Course, Hope Meant Being Cut Down On Some Street Corner, As You Ran Like Mad, By A Random Bullet. But When I Really Thought It Through, Nothing Was Going To Allow Me Such A Luxury. Everything Was Against It; I Would Just Be Caught Up In The Machinery Again.

The Absurd Is Sin Without God.

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On My Way Out I Was Even Going To Shake His Hand, But I Remembered Just In Time That I'd Killed A Man.

When You Have Once Seen The Glow Of Happiness On The Face Of A Beloved Person, You Know That A Man Can Have No Vocation But To Awaken That Light On The Faces Surrounding Him. In The Depth Of Winter, I Finally Learned That Within Me There Lay An Invincible Summer.

In Our Society, Any Man Who Doesn't Cry At His Mother's Funeral Is Liable To Be Condemned To Death.

True Debauchery Is Liberating Because It Creates No Obligations. In It You Possess Only Yourself, Hence It Remains The Favorite Pastime Of The Great Lovers Of Their Own Person.

But Do You Know Why We Are Always More Just And Generous Toward The Dead? The Reason Is Simple. With Them There Is No Obligation. They Leave Us Free And We Can Take Our Time, Fit The Testimonial Between A Cocktail Party And A Nice Little Mistress, In Our Spare Time, In Short.

There Is No Shame In Preferring Happiness.

After Another Moment's Silence She Mumbled That I Was Peculiar, That That Was Probably Why She Loved Me But That One Day I Might Disgust Her For The Very Same Reason.

To Insure The Adoration Of A Theorem For Any Length Of Time, Faith Is Not Enough, A Police Force Is Needed As Well.

Law Enforcement

God Put Self-pity By The Side Of Despair Like The Cure By The Side Of The Disease.

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.

The Primordial Sea Indefatigably Repeats The Same Words And Casts Up The Same Astonished Beings On The Same Sea-shore.

Germany Collapsed As A Result Of Having Engaged In A Struggle For Empire With The Concepts Of Provincial Politics.

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.

One Cannot Be A Part-time Nihilist.

...any Authentic Creation Is A Gift To The Future.

Stupidity Has A Knack Of Getting Its Way.

In The Past, The Poverty They Shared Had A Certain Sweetness About It. When The End Of The Day Came And They Would Eat Their Dinner In Silence With The Oil Lamp Between Them, There Was A Secret Joy In Such Simplicity, Such Retrenchment.

Death Means Nothing To Men Like Me. It's The Event That Proves Them Right.

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. And The Fact That Men Accept This, That The People’s Anger Has Not Destroyed These Hollow Clowns, Strikes Me As Proof That Men Attribute No Importance To The Way They Are Governed; That They Gamble – Yes, Gamble – With A Whole Part Of Their Life And Their So Called 'vital Interests.

Life Should Be Lived To The Point Of Tears

Rebellion Cannot Exist Without The Feeling That Somewhere, In Some Way, You Are Justified.

It Is Normal To Give Away A Little Of One's Life In Order Not To Lose It All.

For Ever, I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself.

After All, I Do Not Have So Many Ways Of Proving That I Am Free. We Is Always Free At The Expense Of Someone Else. It Is A Bother,but It Is Normal.

A Guilty Conscience Needs To Confess. A Work Of Art Is A Confession.

They Hurt Each Other Without Wanting To, Just Because Each Represented To The Others The Cruel And Demanding Necessity Of Their Lives.

It's A Kind Of Spiritual Snobbery That Makes People Think They Can Be Happy Without Money.

I Spent A Long Time Looking At Faces, Drinking In Smiles. Am I Happy Or Unhappy? It’s Not A Very Important Question. I Live With Such Frenzied Intensity. Things And People Are Waiting For Me, And Doubtless I Am Waiting For Them And Desiring Them With All My Strength And Sadness. But, Here, I Earn The Right To Be Alive By Silence And By Secrecy. The Miracle Of Not Having To Talk About Oneself.

Utopia Is That Which Is In Contradiction With Reality.

And Often He Who Has Chosen The Fate Of The Artist Because He Felt Himself To Be Different Soon Realizes That He Can Maintain Neither His Art Nor His Difference Unless He Admits That He Is Like The Others. The Artist Forges Himself To The Others, Midway Between The Beauty He Cannot Do Without And The Community He Cannot Tear Himself Away From.

And It Was Like Knocking Four Quick Times On The Door Of Unhappiness.

Freedom Is Not A Reward Or A Decoration That You Toast In Champagne. On The Contrary, It's Hard Graft And A Long-distance Run, All Alone, Very Exhausting. Alone In A Dreary Room, Alone In The Dock Before The Judges, And Alone To Make Up Your Mind, Before Yourself And Before The Judgement Of Others. At The End Of Every Freedom There Is A Sentence, Which Is Why Freedom Is Too Heavy To Bear.

It Is Not Humiliating To Be Unhappy. Physical Suffering Is Sometimes Humiliating, But The Suffering Of Being Cannot Be, It Is Life.

Happiness And Love

You Will Always Win If You Make An Effort, No Matter How Much. However, If You Failed It Means You Were Too Lazy.

It Happens That The Stage Sets Collapse. Rising, Streetcar, Four Hours In The Office Or The Factory, Meal, Streetcar, Four Hours Of Work, Meal, Sleep, And Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday And Saturday According To The Same Rhythm – This Path Is Easily Followed Most Of The Time. But One Day The “why” Arises And Everything Begins In That Weariness Tinged With Amazement.

It Should Be Pointed Out For Our Own Guidance In The West That The Continual Signing Of Manifestoes And Protests Is One Of The Surest Ways Of Undermining The Efficacy And Dignity Of The Intellectual. There Exists A Permanent Blackmail That We All Know And That We Must Have The Often Solitary Courage To Resist.

Empires And Churches Are Born Under The Sun Of Death.

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.

I Had Been Right I Was Still Right I Was Always Right. I Had Lived My Life One Way And I Could Just As Well Lived It Another. I Had Done This And I Hadn T Done That. I Hadn T Done This Thing And I Had Done Another. And So?

Fiction Is The Lie Through Which We Tell The Truth.

Telling The Truth

Those Who Lack The Courage Will Always Find A Philosophy To Justify It.

It Is Impossible To Give A Clear Account Of The World, But Art Can Teach Us To Reproduce It-just As The World Reproduces Itself In The Course Of Its Eternal Gyrations. The Primordial Sea Indefatigably Repeats The Same Words And Casts Up The Same Astonished Beings On The Same Sea-shore.

The More I Accuse Myself, The More Right I Have To Judge You. Even Better, I Make You Judge Yourself, Which Comforts Me The More.

In Default Of Inexhaustible Happiness, Eternal Suffering Would At Least Give Us A Destiny. But We Do Not Even Have That Consolation, And Our Worst Agonies Come To An End One Day.

Mon Cher Ami, Let's Not Give Them Any Pretext, No Matter How Small, For Judging Us!!! Otherwise, We'll Be Left In Shreds. We Are Forced To Take The Same Precautions As The Animal Trainer. If, Before Going Into The Cage, He Has The Misfortune To Cut Himself While Shaving, What A Feast For The Wild Animals!!

Every Great Work Makes The Human Face More Admirable And Richer, And This Is Its Whole Secret.

I Don't Want To Be A Genius-i Have Enough Problems Just Trying To Be A Man.

A Trial Cannot Be Conducted By Announcing The General Culpability Of A Civilization. Only The Actual Deeds Which, At Least, Stank In The Nostrils Of The Entire World Were Brought To Judgment.

Ah Cher Ami, How Poor In Invention Men Are! They Are They Always Think One Commits Suicide For A Reason. But It's Quite Possible To Commit Suicide For Two Reasons. No, That Never Occurs To Them. So What's The Good Of Dying Intentionally, Of Sacrificing Yourself To The Idea You Want People To Have Of You? Once You Are Dead, They Will Take Advantage Of It To Attribute Idiotic Or Vulgar Motives To Your Action. Martyrs, Cher Ami, Must Choose Between Being Forgotten, Mocked, Or Made Use Of. As For Being Understood--never!

What Would Become Of The World If The Condemned Started To Confide Their Heartaches To The Executioners?

An Intellectual Is Someone Whose Mind Watches Itself.

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.

There Are Some Individuals Who Have Too Strong A Craving, A Will, And A Nostalgia For Happiness Ever To Reach It. They Always Retain A Bitter And Passionate Aftertaste, And That's The Best They Can Hope For.

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.

Have Pity, Lord, On Those Who Love And Are Separated.

The Most Loathsome Materialism Is Not The Kind People Usually Think Of, But The Sort That Attempts To Let Dead Ideas Pass For Living Realities, Diverting Into Sterile Myths The Stubborn And Lucid Attention We Give To What We Have Within Us That Must Forever Die.

To Feel Absolutely Right Is The Beginning Of The End.

Lucifer Also Has Died With God, And From His Ashes Has Arisen A Spiteful Demon Who Does Not Even Understand The Object Of His Venture.

I Have Not Stopped Loving That Which Is Sacred In This World.

Happiness And Love

I Want To Know If I Can Live With What I Know, And Only Than.

The Society Of Merchants Can Be Defined As A Society In Which Things Disappear In Favor Of Signs. When A Ruling Class Measures Its Fortunes, Not By The Acre Of Land Or The Ingot Of Gold, But By The Number Of Figures Corresponding Ideally To A Certain Number Of Exchange Operations, It Thereby Condemns Itself To Setting A Certain Kind Of Humbug At The Center Of Its Experience And Its Universe. A Society Founded On Signs Is, In Its Essence, An Artificial Society In Which Man's Carnal Truth Is Handled As Something Artificial.

It Occurred To Me That Anyway One More Sunday Was Over That Maman Was Buried Now, That I Was Going Back To Work, And That, Really, Nothing Had Changed.

Where There Is No Hope, It Is Incumbent On Us To Invent It.

At Times I Feel Myself Overtaken By An Immense Tenderness For These People Around Me Who Live In The Same Century.

Happiness And Love

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