If, after all, men cannot always make history have a meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Even if history lacks meaning, individuals can give their own lives meaning through action.
- In plain terms
- If history is meaningless, we can still make our lives meaningful.
- What can you take from it?
- Personal agency creates purpose.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How can we find meaning in mundane tasks?
- What actions best reflect personal values?
Another view
It may overlook structural constraints on individual agency.
More from Albert Camus
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 …
Permalink to quote #151 If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying for?
Permalink to quote #153 If our age admits, with equanimity, that murder has its justifications, it is because of this indifference to life which is the mark of nihilism.
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