Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for humans to fight against injustice and actively create happiness in response to life's challenges.
Albert Camus highlights the human condition of enduring suffering and injustice in the world. He suggests that rather than passively accepting these realities, individuals should stand up for justice and make an effort to cultivate happiness. This reflects the existential belief in the importance of personal agency and the active role one plays in shaping their own life and responding to the universe's inherent struggles.
In practice
This quote can be used during a speech about social justice to inspire action.
The Poor Man whom everyone speaks of, the Poor Man whom everyone pities, one of the repulsive Poor from whom charitable souls keep their distance, he has still said nothing. Or, rather, he has spoken through the voice of Victor Hugo, Zola, Richepin. At least, they said so. And these shameful impostures fed their authors. Cruel irony, the Poor Man tormented with hunger feeds those who plead his case.
The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds.
Between history and the eternal I have chosen history because I like certainties. Of it, at least, I am certain, and how can I deny this force crushing me.
Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day.
A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.
At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.
We're all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I'm complicit in the things that I'm trying to oppose.
Moralists and philosophers have adjudged those who throw temptation in the way of the erring, equally guilty with those who are thereby led into evil
Jesus was much more interested in the quality of the people's response to him than in the quantity of the crowd.
The root of disaster means a star coming apart, and no image expresses better the look in a patient's eyes when hearing a neurosurgeon's diagnosis.
Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable - omnipotent on condition that it do nothing.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.