No matter what cause one defends, it will suffer permanent disgrace if one resorts to blind attacks on crowds of innocent people.

If only nature is real and if, in nature, only desire and destruction are legitimate, then, in that all humanity does not suffice to assuage the thirst for blood, the path of destruction must lead to universal annihilation.

Morality, when formal, devours.

What made me run away was doubtless not so much the fear of settling down, but of settling down permanently in something ugly.

Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or the taste of the superhuman, cripple judgment. On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself. The purpose of this essay is to accept and study that strange challenge.

I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor".

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.