To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that when reason fails to offer hope, passion—rooted in negative emotions—can become a driving force for belief.
In this quote, Albert Camus reflects on the nature of despair and the role of passion in shaping one's beliefs. He suggests that when logical reasoning fails to provide the necessary faith or hope, it is often the intense emotions like humiliation and hatred that fuel a person’s convictions. This presents a paradox where the very feelings that cause despair can simultaneously drive a person to adopt a fervent belief, highlighting the complex interplay between emotion and reason in human experience.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the resilience of human spirit in facing adversity.
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.
I am a book I neither wrote nor read.
God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple.
There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.
When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well being and comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do something.
Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home. The great religious leaders were all dreamers.
Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique.
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