Quote #191

The age of enlightenment, as people say, wanted to suppress the death penalty on the pretext that man was naturally good. Of course he is not (he is worse or better). After twenty years of our magnificent history we are well aware of this. But precisely because he is not absolutely good, no one among us can pose as an absolute judge and pronounce the definitive elimination of the worst among the guilty, because no one of us can lay claim to absolute innocence.

More from Albert Camus

  1. Temporal idols demanding an absolute faith tirelessly decree absolute punishments.
  2. The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world.
  3. Suffering is never provisional for the man who does not believe in the future.
  4. The Church has been so harsh with heretics only because she deemed that there is no worse enemy than a child who has gone astray. But the r…
  5. Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is totality.
  6. The contrary of a civilized nation is a creative nation.
  7. Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
  8. 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.

All Albert Camus quotes