Quote #143

History, undoubtedly, is one of the limits of man's experience; in this sense the revolutionaries are right. But man, by rebelling, imposes in his turn a limit to history, and at this limit the promise of a value is born... The triumphant revolution must prove by means of its police, its trials, and its excommunications that there is no such thing as human nature. Humiliated rebellion, by its contradictions, its sufferings, its continuous defeats, and its inexhaustible pride, must give its content of hope and suffering to this nature.

More from Albert Camus

  1. History without a value to transfigure it, is controlled by the law of expediency.
  2. I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false. But at least it…
  3. Historical thought was to deliver man from subjection to a divinity; but this liberation demanded of him the most absolute subjection to hi…
  4. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules.
  5. Historical reasoning is not a type of reasoning that, within the framework of its own functions, can pass judgment on the world. While pret…
  6. I have shared and I still share many of the contemporary frenzies. But I have never been able to get myself to spit, as so many others do, …
  7. Heraclitus, the discoverer of the constant change of things, nevertheless set a limit to this perpetual process. This limit was symbolized …
  8. I loathe none but executioners.

All Albert Camus quotes