On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.

Rebellion, in man, is the refusal to be treated as an object and to be reduced to simple historical terms. It is the affirmation of a nature common to all men, which eludes the world of power.

Camus himself described this work as 'an attempt to understand the time I live in'.

There is nothing abstract about pain. It is specific, it is real, and, when it is intense, it is world destroying.

A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.

Life should be lived to the point of tears

We are not certain, we are never certain. If we were we could reach some conclusions, and we could, at last, make others take us seriously.