We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.

All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences that legitimize or cancel it. A mind imbued with the absurd merely judges that those consequences must be considered calmly.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.

Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics.

Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down... There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.

As for those whose role it is to love us - I mean, relatives and in-laws (what a word)- It's a different tune. They find the right word, but it's usually the one that wounds.

The only way out [of international dictatorship] is to place international law above governments, which means [...] that there must be a parliament for making it, and that parliament must be constituted by means of worldwide elections in which all nations will take part.