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.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Human intellectual progress is defined more by its failures and regrets than its achievements.
- In plain terms
- History shows us what humanity wished it had done better rather than what it perfected.
- What can you take from it?
- Acknowledge failure as a central part of intellectual history.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What regrets define your field?
- Is progress mostly learning from mistakes?
Another view
This view may undervalue genuine human achievements.
More from Albert Camus
The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes what it is. It withdraws at a distance from us.
Permalink to quote #55 A fate is not a punishment.
Permalink to quote #57 Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty.
Permalink to quote #54
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