Quote #132

From my first articles to my latest book I have written so much, and perhaps too much, only because I cannot keep from being drawn toward everyday life, toward those, whoever they may be, who are humiliated and debased. They need to hope, and if all keep silent or if they are given a choice between two kinds of humiliation, they will be forever deprived of hope and we with them.

More from Albert Camus

  1. For twenty centuries the sum total of evil has not diminished in the world.
  2. From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder, everything has its truth. Consciousness illuminates it by paying attention to it.
  3. For some time the entire effort of our philosophers has aimed solely at replacing the notion of human nature with that of situation, and re…
  4. From the humanitarian idylls of the eighteenth century to the bloodstained gallows the way leads directly; and the executioners of today, a…
  5. For men of today there is an inner way, which I know well from having taken it in both directions, leading from the spiritual hilltops to t…
  6. From the moment that eternal principles are put in doubt simultaneously with formal virtue, and when every value is discredited, reason wil…
  7. For capital punishment to be really intimidating, human nature would have to be different; it would have to be as stable and serene as the …
  8. Half a man's life is spent in implying, in turning away, and in keeping silent.

All Albert Camus quotes