Quotes from book
The Rebel

Albert CamusOriginal title L’Homme révolté (French, 1951)

The Rebel is a 1951 book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe. Camus relates writers and artists as diverse as Epicurus and Lucretius, the Marquis de Sade, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, André Breton, and others in an integrated, historical portrait of man in revolt. Examining both rebellion and revolt, which may be seen as the same phenomenon in personal and social frames, Camus examines several 'countercultural' figures and movements from the history of Western thought and art, noting the importance of each in the overall development of revolutionary thought and philosophy. This work has received ongoing interest, influencing modern philosophers and authors such as Paul Berman and others.

“I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Source: The Rebel (1951), pp. 8 - 10 as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd';(2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 44
Context: The absurd … is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence of Descartes' methodical doubt. Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion … Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition.

“Then we understand that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. Those who find no rest in God or in history are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live; in fact, for the humiliated.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“In every rebellion is to be found the metaphysical demand for unity, the impossibility of capturing it, and the construction of a substitute universe.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“With rebellion, awareness is born.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

As quoted in The Estranged God : Modern Man's Search for Belief (1966) by Anthony T. Padovano, p. 109
The Rebel (1951)

“Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to the present.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

La vraie générosité envers l'avenir consiste à tout donner au présent.
Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (p. 313)
The Rebel (1951)

“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.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“Whatever we may do, excess will always keep its place in the heart of man, in the place where solitude is found. We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Variant translation: Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic.
The Rebel (1951)

“Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“The artist reconstructs the world to his plan.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“In the end, man is not entirely guilty — he did not start history. Nor is he wholly innocent — he continues it.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

L'homme enfin n'est pas entièrement coupable — il n'a pas commencé l'histoire — ni tout à fait innocent, puisqu'il la continue.
Part 5: Thought at the Meridian (Section: Moderation and Excess)
The Rebel (1951)

“Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the concept of a complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and a protest against the human condition both for its incompleteness, thanks to death, and its wastefulness, thanks to evil.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)

“In the light, the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die, and which we shall never again postpone to a later time.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

““The real saint”, Baudelaire pretends to think, “is he who flogs and kills people for their own good.” His argument will be heard. A race of real saints is beginning to spread over the earth for the purposes of confirming these curious conclusions about rebellion.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“Real fulfillment, for the man who allows absolutely free rein to his desires, and who much dominate everything, lies in hatred.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)

“Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 4: Rebellion and Art
The Rebel (1951)

“The most elementary form of rebellion, paradoxically, expresses an aspiration for order.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)

“When the throne of God is overturned, the rebel realizes that it is now his own responsibility to create the justice, order, and unity that he sought in vain within his own condition, and in this way to justify the fall of God. Then begins the desperate effort to create, at the price of crime and murder if necessary, the dominion of man.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

“A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)

“Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

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