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...we Rarely Confide In Those Who Are Better Than We. Rather, We Are More Inclined To Flee Their Society. Most Often, On The Other Hand, We Confess To Those Who Are Like Us And Who Share Our Weaknesses. Hence We Don't Want To Improve Ourselves And Be Bettered, For We Should First Have To Be Judged In Default. We Merely Wish To Be Pitied And Encouraged In The Course We Have Chosen. In Short, We Should Like, At The Same Time, To Cease Being Guilty And Yet Not To Make The Effort Of Cleansing Ourselves.

-Albert Camus

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...we Rarely Confide In

Albert Camus

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...we Rarely Confide In Those Who Are Better Than We. Rather, We Are More Inclined To Flee Their Society. Most Often, On The Other Hand, We Confess To Those Who Are Like Us And Who Share Our Weaknesses. Hence We Don't Want To Improve Ourselves And Be Bettered, For We Should First Have To Be Judged In Default. We Merely Wish To Be Pitied And Encouraged In The Course We Have Chosen. In Short, We Should Like, At The Same Time, To Cease Being Guilty And Yet Not To Make The Effort Of Cleansing Ourselves.

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In This Vast Country That He Had So Loved, He Was Alone.

Realism Should Only Be The Means Of Expression Of Religious Genius... Or, At The Other Extreme, The Artistic Expressions Of Monkeys Which Are Quite Satisfied With Mere Imitation. In Fact, Art Is Never Realistic Though Sometimes It Is Tempted To Be. To Be Really Realistic A Description Would Have To Be Endless.

Who Taught You All This, Doctor?" The Reply Came Promptly: "suffering.

In Order To Exist, Man Must Rebel, But Rebellion Must Respect The Limits That It Discovers In Itself - Limits Where Minds Meet, And In Meeting, Begin To Exist.

The Only Way To Deal With An Unfree World Is To Become So Absolutely Free That Your Very Existence Is An Act Of Rebellion.

Some People Talk In Their Sleep. Lecturers Talk While Other People Sleep.

I Have Always Thought It Would Be Easier To Redeem A Man Steeped In Vice And Crime Than A Greedy, Narrow-minded, Pitiless Merchant.

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

In Order To Be Created, A Work Of Art Must First Make Use Of The Dark Forces Of The Soul

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Truth, Like Light Is Dazzling. By Contrast, Untruth Is A Beautiful Sunset That Enhances Everything.

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.

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I Was Tormented By My Desire For A Woman ... I Thought So Much About A Woman, About Women, About All The Ones I Had Known, About All The Circumstances In Which I Had Enjoyed Them, That My Cell Would Be Filled With Their Faces And Crowded With My Desires.

The Love Of God Is A Hard Love. It Demands Total Self-surrender, Disdain Of Our Human Personality. And Yet It Alone Can Reconcile Us To Suffering And The Deaths Of Children, It Alone Can Justify Them, Since We Cannot Understand Them, And We Can Only Make God's Will Ours.

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There Exists An Obvious Fact That Seems Utterly Moral: Namely, That A Man Is Always Prey To His Truths. Once He Has Admitted Them, He Cannot Free Himself From Them. One Has To Pay Something. A Man Who Has Become Conscious Of The Absurd Is Forever Bound To It.

Real Fulfillment, For The Man Who Allows Absolutely Free Rein To His Desires, And Who Much Dominate Everything, Lies In Hatred.

The One Who Doesnt Play, Doesnt Win Anything, But He Actually Looses Somehting, {playing}

By Giving Too Much Importance To Fine Actions One May End By Paying An Indirect But Powerful Tribute To Evil, Because In So Doing One Implies That Such Fine Actions Are Only Valuable Because They Are Rare, And That Malice Or Indifference Are Far More Common Motives In The Actions Of Men.

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It Is The Job Of Thinking People Not To Be On The Side Of The Executioners.

When I Look At My Life And Its Secret Colors, I Feel Like Bursting Into Tears.

There Is A Solitude In Poverty, But A Solitude Which Restores To Each Thing Its Value.

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How Hard It Is, How Bitter It Is To Become A Man!

If Pimps And Thieves Everywhere Were Always Punished, Honest People Would All Believe Themselves Always To Be Innocent.

He's Incapable Of Suffering For A Long Time, Or Being Happy For A Long Time. Which Means That He's Incapable Of Anything Really Worth While.

It Is Not Rebellion Itself Which Is Noble But The Demands It Makes Upon Us.

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Murder Is Terribly Exhausting.

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

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The Only Real Progress Lies In Learning To Be Wrong All Alone.

God Is Not Necessary To Create Culpability, Or To Punish. Our Fellow Men Are Enough For That, Helped By Ourselves.

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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.

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Don't Wait For The Last Judgment - It Takes Place Every Day.

My Profession Lent Itself Nicely To My Vocation For Heights. It Freed Me Of Any Bitterness Towards My Fellow Men, Who Were Alwaysin My Debt, Without My Owing Them Anything. It Placed Me Above The Judge Whom, I In Turn Judged, Above The Defendant Whom I Forced Into Gratitude.

Whoever Gives Nothing, Has Nothing. The Greatest Misfortune Is Not To Be Unloved, But Not To Love.

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Everybody Knows Life Isn't Worth Living.

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There Is No Shame In Preferring Happiness.

Idleness Is Fatal Only To The Mediocre.

How Do You Put Everyone In The Pool, So You Have The Right To Dry Yourself In The Sun?

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One Always Has Exaggerated Ideas About What One Doesn't Know.

The Important Thing Isn't The Soundness Or Otherwise Of The Argument, But For It To Make You Think.

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The Act Of Love Is A Confession.

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I Do Not Believe In God And I Am Not An Atheist.

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A Work Of Art Is A Confession.

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Having Money Is A Way Of Being Free Of Money.

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Nothing Is More Despicable Than Respect Based On Fear.

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Freedom Is The Right To Never Have To Lie.

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There Is So Much Stubborn Hope In The Human Heart.

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Every Man, And For Stronger Reasons, Every Artist, Wants To Be Recognized. So Do I.

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How Hard It Must Be To Live Only With What One Knows And What One Remembers, Cut Off From What One Hopes For!

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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.

Art And Revolt Will Die Only With The Last Man.

To Stay Or To Go, It Amounted To The Same Thing.

I've Seen Of Enough Of People Who Die For An Idea. I Don't Believe In Heroism; I Know It's Easy And I've Learned It Can Be Murderous. What Interests Me Is Living And Dying For What One Loves.

In Oran, As Elsewhere, For Want Of Time And Thought, People Have To Love One Another Without Knowing It.

In Fact, Other People Create For Lack Of Power. I, On The Other Hand, Do Not Need A Work: I Live.

To Write Is To Become Disinterested. There Is A Certain Renunciation In Art.

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True Artists Scorn Nothing.

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In Italian Museums Are Sometimes Found Little Painted Screens That The Priest Used To Hold In Front Of The Face Of Condemned Men To Hide The Scaffold From Them.

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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.

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Empires And Churches Are Born Under The Sun Of Death.

I Explained To Him, However, That My Nature Was Such That My Physical Needs Often Got In The Way Of My Feelings.

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If Absolute Truth Belongs To Anyone In This World, It Certainly Does Not Belong To The Man Or Party That Claims To Possess It.

The Welfare Of The People In Particular Has Always Been The Alibi Of Tyrants.

Violence Is Both Unavoidable And Unjustifiable.

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