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What Can A Meaning Outside My Condition Mean To Me? I Can Understand Only In Human Terms. What I Touch, What Resists Me - That I Understand. And These Two Certainties - My Appetite For The Absolute And For Unity And The Impossibility Of Reducing This World To A Rational And Reasonable Principle - I Also Know That I Cannot Reconcile Them. What Other Truth Can I Admit Without Lying, Without Bringing In A Hope I Lack And Which Means Nothing Within The Limits Of My Conditions?

-Albert Camus

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What Can A Meaning

Albert Camus

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What Can A Meaning Outside My Condition Mean To Me? I Can Understand Only In Human Terms. What I Touch, What Resists Me - That I Understand. And These Two Certainties - My Appetite For The Absolute And For Unity And The Impossibility Of Reducing This World To A Rational And Reasonable Principle - I Also Know That I Cannot Reconcile Them. What Other Truth Can I Admit Without Lying, Without Bringing In A Hope I Lack And Which Means Nothing Within The Limits Of My Conditions?

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What, Then, Is That Incalculable Feeling That Deprives The Mind Of The Sleep Necessary To Life? A World That Can Be Explained Even With Bad Reasons Is A Familiar World. But, On The Other Hand, In A Universe Suddenly Divested Of Illusions And Lights, Man Feels An Alien, A Stranger. His Exile Is Without Remedy Since He Is Deprived Of The Memory Of A Lost Home Or The Hope Of A Promised Land. This Divorce Between Man And His Life, The Actor And His Setting, Is Properly The Feeling Of Absurdity.

In The Next Few Years The Struggle Will Not Be Between Utopia And Reality, But Between Different Utopias, Each Trying To Impose Itself On Reality ... We Can No Longer Hope To Save Everything, But ... We Can At Least Try To Save Lives, So That Some Kind Of Future, If Perhaps Not The Ideal One, Will Remain Possible.

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.

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.

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

For Ever, I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself.

Revolution, In Order To Be Creative, Cannot Do Without Either A Moral Or Metaphysical Rule To Balance The Insanity Of History.

Because There Is Nothing Here Than Invites Us To Cherish Unhappy Lovers. Nothing Is More Vain Than To Die For Love. What We Ought To Do Is Live.

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

Happiness Is Not Everything And Men Have Their Duties. Mine Is To Find My Mother, A Homeland

In Order To Exist Just Once In The World, It Is Necessary Never Again To Exist.

What Is A Rebel? A Man Who Says No: But Whose Refusal Does Not Imply A Renunciation.

The Loss Of Love Is The Loss Of All Rights, Even Though One Had Them All.

There Always Comes A Time When One Must Choose Between Contemplation And Action. This Is Called Becoming A Man.

If The Only Significant History Of Human Thought Were To Be Written, It Would Have To Be The History Of Its Successive Regrets And Its Impotences.

Myth Of Sisyphus

Absolute Freedom Mocks At Justice. Absolute Justice Denies Freedom.

No Ends, Simply Means.

But In Order To Speak About All And To All, One Has To Speak Of What All Know And Of The Reality Common To Us All. The Seas, Rains, Necessity, Desire, The Struggle Against Death--these Are Things That Unite Us All. We Resemble One Another In What We See Together, In What We Suffer Together. Dreams Change From Individual, But The Reality Of The World Is Common To Us All. Striving Towards Realism Is Therefore Legitimate, For It Is Basically Related To The Artistic Adventure.

His Own Faith, However, Was Not Lacking In Virtues Since It Consisted In Acknowledging Obscurely That He Would Be Granted Much Without Ever Deserving Anything.

But - I Cannot Make A Choice. I Have My Own Sorrow, But I Suffer With Him, Too; I Share His Pain. I Understand All - That Is My Trouble.

I Longed To Be Forgotten In Order To Be Able To Complain To Myself.

There Is No More Futile Punishment Than Futile And Hopeless Labor.

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.

All Great Deeds And All Great Thoughts Have A Ridiculous Beginning. Great Works Are Often Born On A Street Corner Or In A Restaurant's Revolving Door.

Chacun Exige D'e" Tre Innocent, A' Tout Prix, Me" Me Si, Pour Cela, Il Faut Accuser Le Genre Humain Et Le Ciel. Everyone Insists On His Or Her Innocence, At All Costs, Even If It Means Accusing The Rest Of The Human Race And Heaven.

Forever I Shall Be A Stranger To Myself. In Psychology As In Logic, There Are Truths But No Truth.

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

The Opposite Of An Idealist Is Too Often A Man Without Love.

How Many Crimes Are Permitted Simply Because Their Authors Could Not Endure Being Wrong.

To Understand One's World, One Must Sometimes Turn Away From It! To Serve Better, One Must Briefly Hold It At A Distance. Where Can The Necessary Solitude Be Found, The Long Breathing Space In Which Mind Gathers Its Strength And Takes Stock Of Its Courage.

Breathing Space

The Society Based On Production Is Only Productive, Not Creative.

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

Time Will Prolong Time, And Life Will Serve Life. In This Field That Is Both Limited And Bulging With Possibilities, Everything To Himself, Except His Lucidity, Seems Unforeseeable To Him. What Rule, Then, Could Emanate From That Unreasonable Order? The Only Truth That Might Seem Instructive To Him Is Not Formal: It Comes To Life And Unfolds In Men. The Absurd Mind Cannot So Much Expect Ethical Rules At The End Of Its Reasoning As, Rather, Illustrations And The Breath Of Human Lives.

Man Is The Only Creature That Refuses To Be What He Is.

To Know Oneself, One Should Assert Oneself.

He Who Despairs Of The Human Condition Is A Coward, But He Who Has Hope For It Is A Fool.

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.

People Have Played On Words And Pretended To Believe That Refusing To Grant A Meaning To Life Necessarily Leads To Declaring That It Is Not Worth Living. In Truth, There Is No Necessary Common Measure Between These Two Judgments.

You Always Get Exaggerated Notions Of Things You Don't Know Anything About.

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.

I Realized People Would Soon Forget Me Once I Was Dead. I Couldn't Even Say That This Was Hard To Stomach; Really, There's No Idea To Which One Doesn't Get Acclimatized In Time.

But Above All, In Order To Be, Never Try To Seem.

The Truth Is That Everyone Is Bored, And Devotes Himself To Cultivating Habits.

Every Writer, Big Or Small, Needs To Say Or Write That The Genius Is Always Hissed At By His Contemporaries. Naturally, This Is Not True, It Happens Only Occasionally And Often By Chance. But This Need Within The Writer Is Enlightening.

He Was Conscious Of The Disastrous Fact That Love And Desire Must Be Expressed In The Same Way.

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!!'

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.

The Current Motto For All Of Us Can Only Be This: Without Giving Up Anything On The Plane Of Justice, Yield Nothing On The Plane Of Freedom.

Nothing Is More Despicable Than Respect Based On Fear.

Your Success And Happiness Are Forgiven You Only If You Generously Consent To Share Them. But To Be Happy It Is Essential Not To Be Too Concerned With Others. Consequently, There Is No Escape. Happy And Judged, Or Absolved And Wretched.

Believe Me There Is No Such Thing As Great Suffering, Great Regret, Great Memory....everything Is Forgotten, Even A Great Love. That's What's Sad About Life, And Also What's Wonderful About It. There Is Only A Way Of Looking At Things, A Way That Comes To You Every Once In A While. That's Why It's Good To Have Had Love In Your Life After All, To Have Had An Unhappy Passion- It Gives You An Alibi For The Vague Despairs We All Suffer From.

In Order To Exist, Man Must Rebel.

Men Are Never Convinced Of Your Reasons, Of Your Sincerity, Of The Seriousness Of Your Sufferings, Except By Your Death. So Long As You Are Alive, Your Case Is Doubtful; You Have A Right Only To Their Skepticism.

Do Not Wait For The Last Judgment. It Takes Place Every Day.

If You Keep On Excusing, You Eventually Give Your Blessing To The Slave Camp, To Cowardly Force, To Organized Executioners, To The Cynicism Of Great Political Monsters; You Finally Hand Over Your Brothers.

Truth Is Not A Virtue, But A Passion. It Is Never Charitable.

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.

What Is Human In Me Is Not What Is Best In Me. What Is Human In Me Is That I Desire, And To Obtain What I Desire, I Believe I Would Crush Anything That Stood In My Way.

Great Novelists Are Philosopher Novelists - That Is, The Contrary Of Thesis-writers.

This Divorce Between Man And His Life, The Actor And His Setting, Is Properly The Feeling Of Absurdity.

Absurdity Of Life

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

Somebody Has To Have The Last Word. If Not, Every Argument Could Be Opposed By Another And We'd Never Be Done With It.

As For Those Whose Role It Is To Love Us - I Mean, Relatives And In-laws (what A Word)- It's A Different Tune. They Find The Right Word, But It's Usually The One That Wounds.

Men And Women Consume One Another Rapidly In What Is Called "the Act Of Love," Or Else Settle Down To A Mild Habit Of Conjugality. We Seldom Find A Mean Between These Two Extremes.

If Only Nature Is Real And If, In Nature, Only Desire And Destruction Are Legitimate, Then, In That All Humanity Does Not Suffice To Assuage The Thirst For Blood, The Path Of Destruction Must Lead To Universal Annihilation.

Moreover, Most People, Assuming They Had Not Altogether Abandoned Religious Observances, Or Did Not Combine Them Naively With A Thoroughly Immoral Way Of Living, Had Replace Normal Religious Practice By More Or Less Extravagant Superstitions.

Beauty Is Unbearable, Drives Us To Despair, Offering Us For A Minute The Glimpse Of An Eternity That We Should Like To Stretch Out Over The Whole Of Time.

But, You Know, I Feel More Fellowship With The Defeated Than With Saints. Heroism And Sanctity Don't Really Appeal To Me, I Imagine. What Interests Me Is Being A Man.

It Is Necessary To Fall In Love... If Only To Provide An Alibi For All The Random Despair You Are Going To Feel Anyway.

Falling In Love

Like Great Works, Deep Feelings Always Mean More Than They Are Conscious Of Saying.

But It's Not Easy. I've Been Thinking It Over For Years. While We Loved Each Other We Didn't Need Words To Make Ourselves Understood. But People Don't Love Forever. A Time Came When I Should Have Found The Words To Keep Her With Me, Only I Couldn't.

A Lot Of Jobs Don't Allow You To Be Who You Are. There Is Dignity In Work Only When It Is Work Freely Accepted.

Proof Is Never Definitive, After All; One Has To Begin Again With Each New Person.

False Judges Are Held Up In The World's Admiration And I Alone Know The True Ones.

The More I Produce, The Less I Am Certain. On The Road Along Which The Artist Walks, Night Falls Ever More Densely. Finally, He Dies Blind.

Without Memories, Without Hope, They Lived For The Moment Only. Indeed, The Here And Now Had Come To Mean Everything To Them. For There Is No Denying That The Plague Had Gradually Killed Off In All Of Us The Faculty Not Of Love Only But Even Of Friendship. Naturally Enough, Since Love Asks Something Of The Future, And Nothing Was Left Us But A Series Of Present Moments.

I Hope The Dogs Don't Bark Tonight. I Always Think It's Mine

Love Is The Kind Of Illness That Does Not Spare The Intelligent Or The Dull.

A Man Who Has Become Conscious Of The Absurd Is For Ever Bound To It.

I Cling Like A Miser To The Freedom That Disappears As Soon As There Is An Excess Of Things.

That Is Love, To Give Away Everything, To Sacrifice Everything, Without The Slightest Desire To Get Anything In Return.3

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.

For Instance, I Never Complained That My Birthday Was Overlooked; People Were Even Surprised, With A Touch Of Admiration, By My Discretion On This Subject. But The Reason For My Disinterestedness Was Even More Discreet: I Longed To Be Forgotten In Order To Be Able To Complain To Myself... Once My Solitude Was Thoroughly Proved, I Could Surrender To The Charms Of A Virile Self-pity.

Greatness Consists In Trying To Be Great. There Is No Other Way.

The Evil That Is In The World Always Comes Of Ignorance, And Good Intentions May Do As Much Harm As Malevolence, If They Lack Understanding.

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

Between History And The Eternal I Have Chosen History Because I Like Certainties. Of It, At Least, I Am Certain, And How Can I Deny This Force Crushing Me.

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.

Fiction Is The Lie Through Which We Tell The Truth.

Telling The Truth

The World Is Unimportant And Whoever Recognizes This Conquers His Liberty.

Every Ideology Is Contrary To Human Psychology.

A Craving For Freedom And Independence Is Generated Only In A Man Still Living On Hope.

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.

Working Conditions

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.

In The Depths Of Winter, I Finally Learned That Within Me There Lay An Invincible Summer.

Our Civilization Survives In The Complacency Of Cowardly Or Malignant Minds -- A Sacrifice To The Vanity Of Aging Adolescents

To Be Famous, In Fact, One Has Only To Kill One's Landlady.

Beware Of Those Who Say: "i Know This Too Well To Be Able To Express It." For If They Cannot Do So, This Is Because They Don't Know It Or Because Out Of Laziness They Stopped At The Outer Crust.

To Remain A Man In Today's World, One Must Have Not Only Unfailing Energy And Unwavering Intensity, One Must Also Have A Little Luck.

To Be Born To Create, To Love, To Win At Games Is To Be Born To Live In Time Of Peace. But War Teaches Us To Lose Everything And Become What We Were Not. It All Becomes A Question Of Style.

The Certainty Of A God Giving Meaning To Life Far Surpasses In Attractiveness The Ability To Behave Badly With Impunity. The Choice Would Not Be Hard To Make. But There Is No Choice And That Is Where The Bitterness Comes In. The Absurd Does Not Liberate; It Binds.

In Every Rebellion Is To Be Found The Metaphysical Demand For Unity, The Impossibility Of Capturing It, And The Construction Of A Substitute Universe.

We Are Not Certain, We Are Never Certain. If We Were We Could Reach Some Conclusions, And We Could, At Last, Make Others Take Us Seriously.

Accept Life, Take It As It Is? Stupid. The Means Of Doing Otherwise? Far From Our Having To Take It, It Is Life That Possesses Us And On Occasion Shuts Our Mouths.

Thus, I Always Began By Assuming The Worst; My Appeal Was Dismissed. That Meant, Of Course, I Was To Die. Sooner Than Others, Obviously. 'but,' I Reminded Myself, 'it's Common Knowledge That Life Isn't Worth Living, Anyhow.' And, On A Wide View, I Could See That It Makes Little Difference Whether One Dies At The Age Of Thirty Or Threescore And Ten-- Since, In Either Case, Other Men Will Continue Living, The World Will Go On As Before. Also, Whether I Died Now Or Forty Years Hence, This Business Of Dying Had To Be Got Through, Inevitably.

Great Feelings Take With Them Their Own Universe, Splendid Or Abject.

If Something Is Going To Happen To Me, I Want To Be There.

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.

The Act Of Love . . . Is A Confession. Selfishness Screams Aloud, Vanity Shows Off, Or Else True Generosity Reveals Itself.

Always Go Too Far, Because That's Where You'll Find The Truth

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.

There Is Always A Philosophy For Lack Of Courage.

Happiness And The Absurd Are Two Sons Of The Same Earth. They Are Inseparable. It Would Be A Mistake To Say That Happiness Necessarily Springs From The Absurd Discovery. It Happens As Well That The Felling Of The Absurd Springs From Happiness. "i Conclude That All Is Well," Says Oedipus, And That Remark Is Sacred. It Echoes In The Wild And Limited Universe Of Man. It Teaches That All Is Not, Has Not Been, Exhausted. It Drives Out Of This World A God Who Had Come Into It With Dissatisfaction And A Preference For Futile Suffering. It Makes Of Fate A Human Matter, Which Must Be Settled Among Men.

If We Believe In Nothing, If Nothing Has Any Meaning And If We Can Affirm No Values Whatsoever, Then Everything Is Possible And Nothing Has Any Importance.

Peace Is The Only Battle Worth Waging.

There Is No Sun Without Shadow, And It Is Essential To Know The Night.

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.

The Look Of Success, When It Is Worn A Certain Way, Would Infuriate A Jackass.

A Symbol Always Transcends The One Who Makes Use Of It And Makes Him Say In Reality More Than He Is Aware Of Expressing.

I Grew Up With The Sea, And Poverty For Me Was Sumptuous; Then I Lost The Sea And Found All Luxuries Gray And Poverty Unbearable.

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

O Light! This The Cry Of All The Characters Of Ancient Drama Brought Face To Face With Their Fate. This Last Resort Was Ours, Too, And I Knew It Now. In The Middle Of Winter I At Last Discovered That There Was In Me An Invincible Summer.

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

Healthy People Have A Natural Skill Of Avoiding Feverish Eyes.

He Seemed So Certain About Everything, Didn't He? And Yet None Of His Certainties Was Worth One Hair Of A Woman's Head. He Wasn't Even Sure He Was Alive, Because He Was Living Like A Dead Man.

We Rarely Confide In Those Who Are Better Than We Are.

The Real 19th Century Prophet Was Dostoevsky, Not Karl Marx.

But Again And Again There Comes A Time In History When The Man Who Dares To Say That Two And Two Make Four Is Punished With Death. The Schoolteacher Is Well Aware Of This. And The Question Is Not One Of Knowing What Punishment Or Reward Attends The Making Of This Calculation. The Question Is One Of Knowing Whether Two And Two Do Make Four

I Know Simply That The Sky Will Last Longer Than I.

May Heaven Protect Us, Cher Monsieur, From Being Set On A Pedestal By Our Friends!!!

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.

To Cut Short This Question Of The Law Of Retaliation, We Must Note That Even In Its Primitive Form It Can Operate Only Between Two Individuals Of Whom One Is Absolutely Innocent And The Other Absolutely Guilty. The Victim, To Be Sure, Is Innocent. But Can The Society That Is Supposed To Represent The Victim Lay Claim To Innocence?

The Only Way Out [of International Dictatorship] Is To Place International Law Above Governments, Which Means [...] That There Must Be A Parliament For Making It, And That Parliament Must Be Constituted By Means Of Worldwide Elections In Which All Nations Will Take Part.

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

It Is Natural To Give A Clear View Of The World After Accepting The Idea That It Must Be Clear.

Integrity Has No Need Of Rules.

Truth Is Mysterious, Elusive, Always To Be Conquered. Liberty Is Dangerous, As Hard To Live With As It Is Elating. We Must March Toward These Two Goals, Painfully But Resolutely, Certain In Advance Of Our Failings On So Long A Road.

Truth, Like Light, Blinds. Falsehood, On The Contrary, Is A Beautiful Twilight That Enhances Every Object.

There Is No Shame In Preferring Happiness.

She Was Wearing A Pair Of My Pajamas With The Sleeves Rolled Up. When She Laughed I Wanted Her Again. A Minute Later She Asked Me If I Loved Her. I Told Her It Didn't Mean Anything But That I Didn't Think So. She Looked Sad. But As We Were Fixing Lunch, And For No Apparent Reason, She Laughed In Such A Way That I Kissed Her.

How Had I Not Seen That There Was Nothing More Important Than An Execution, And That When You Come Right Down To It, It Was The Only Thing A Man Could Truly Be Interested In?

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.

This World, Such As It Is, Is Not Tolerable. Therefore I Need The Moon, Or Happiness, Or Immortality, I Need Something Which Is Perhaps Demented, But Which Is Not Of This World.

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.

Life Can Be Magnificent And Overwhelming -- That Is The Whole Tragedy. Without Beauty, Love, Or Danger It Would Almost Be Easy To Live.

A Fate Is Not A Punishment.

One Dies If Necessary, One Breaks Rather Than Bending. But I Bend, Because I Continue To Love Myself.

What Will Be Left Of The Power Of Example If It Is Proved That Capital Punishment Has Another Power, And A Very Real One, Which Degrades Men To The Point Of Shame, Madness, And Murder?

The Laws Of Nature May Be Operative Up To A Certain Limit, Beyond Which They Turn Against Themselves To Give Birth To The Absurd.

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.

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.

The Spirit Of Rebellion Can Only Exist In A Society Where A Theoretical Equality Conceals Great Factual Inequalities. The Problem Of Rebellion, Therefore, Has No Meaning Except Within Our Own Western Society.

None Of The Evils Which Totalitarianism ... Claims To Remedy Is Worse Than Totalitarianism Itself.

“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.”

Happiness And The Absurd Are Two Sons Of The Same Earth. They Are Inseparable.

And Real Nobility (that Of The Heart) Is Based On Scorn, Courage, And Profound Indifference.

Those Who Love, Friends And Lovers, Know That Love Is Not Only A Blinding Flash, But Also A Long And Painful Struggle In The Darkness For The Realization Of Definitive Recognition And Reconciliation.

Camus Himself Described This Work As 'an Attempt To Understand The Time I Live In'.

In That Night Alive With Signs And Stars, I Opened Myself To The Gentle Indifference Of The World. Finding It So Much Like Myself--like A Brother, Really--i Felt That I Had Been Happy And That I Was Happy Again.

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.

Thoughts Of Suicide Have Got Me Through Many A Bad Night.

To Feel Absolutely Right Is The Beginning Of The End.

I Know That Man Is Capable Of Great Deeds. But If He Isn't Capable Of Great Emotion, Well, He Leaves Me Cold.

I Am Alive Again, Now That I Can No Longer Stand To Live.

When I See A New Face, Something Sets Off An Alarm Bell Inside Me. 'slow Down! Danger!' Even When The Attraction Is Strongest, I Am On My Guard.

Yes, And When The Love Of Life Disappears, No Meaning Can Console Us.

Without Work All Life Goes Rotten.

He Had Opened His Heart To The Sublime Indifference Of The Universe

We Have To Live And Let Live In Order To Create What We Are.

Live And Let Live

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

Happiness And Love

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

Common Knowledge

That's The Way Man Is, Cher Monsieur. He Has Two Faces: He Can't Love Without Self-love.

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.

I Do Not Want To Believe That Death Is The Gateway To Another Life. For Me, It Is A Closed Door. I Do Not Say It Is A Step We Must All Take, But That It Is A Horrible And Dirty Adventure.

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.

For If There Is A Sin Against Life, It Consists Perhaps Not So Much In Despairing Of Life As In Hoping For Another Life And In Eluding The Implacable Grandeur Of This Life.

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.

Freedom Is Not Constituted Primarily Of Privileges But Of Responsibilities.

Betrayal Answers Betrayal, The Mask Of Love Is Answered By The Disappearance Of Love.

Happiness And Love

A Liking For Truth At Any Cost Is A Passion That Spares Nothing And That Nothing Resists. It's A Vice, At Times A Comfort, Or A Selfishness.

I Know Of Only One Duty, And That Is To Love.

In Order To Speak About All And To All, One Has To Speak Of What All Know And Of The Reality Common To Us All. The Sea, Rains, Necessity, Desire, The Struggle Against Death... These Are Things That Unite Us All.

That's Love, Giving Everything, Sacrificing All Without Hope Of Return.

I Know Myself Too Well To Believe In Pure Virtue.

Truly Fertile Music, The Only Kind That Will Move Us, That We Shall Truly Appreciate, Will Be A Music Conducive To Dream, Which Banishes All Reason And Analysis. One Must Not Wish First To Understand And Then To Feel. Art Does Not Tolerate Reason.

Existence Is Illusory And It Is Eternal.

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

Some Are Created To Love, While The Others - To Live.

Ah! My Friend, For Whomever Is Alone, Without A God And Without A Master, The Weight Of Time Is Terrible. One Must Then Choose A Master, God Being Out Of Style.

I Am Too Much In Love With My Lies And Hypocrisies Not To Confess Them Fervently.

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.

A Writer Cannot Put Himself Today In Service Of Those Who Make History; He Is At The Service Of Those Who Suffer It.

At Any Street Corner The Feeling Of Absurdity Can Strike Any Man In The Face.

Democracy Is Not The Law Of The Majority But The Protection Of The Minority.

Freedom Is The Right To Never Have To Lie.

Tout Re Volutionnaire Finit En Oppresseur Ou En He Re Tique. Every Revolutionary Ends As An Oppressor Or A Heretic.

To Begin With, Poor People´s Memory Is Less Nourished Than That Of A Rich; It Has Fewer Landmarks In Space Because They Seldom Leave The Place Where They Live, And Fewer Reference Points In Time Throughtout Lives That Are Grey And Featureless.

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.

We Don't Have The Time To Completely Be Ourselves. We Only Have The Room To Be Happy.

Nihilism Is Not Only Despair And Negation, But Above All The Desire To Despair And To Negate.

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