“The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it. In fact, men cling to the world and by far the majority do not want to abandon it.”
Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)
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Albert Camus 209
French author and journalist 1913–1960Related quotes

Introduction à l'Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale (1865)
Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 107

“I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.”
Equality (1943)
Context: I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people — all the people who believe advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

Source: Letters & Autobiographical Writings (1954), p. 187.

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Context: The respect inspired by the link between man and the reality alien to this world can make itself evident to that part of man which belongs to the reality of this world.
The reality of this world is necessity. The part of man which is in this world is the part which is in bondage to necessity and subject to the misery of need.
The one possibility of indirect expression of respect for the human being is offered by men's needs, the needs of the soul and of the body, in this world.