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.
Interpretation
Camus critiques the superficiality of modern life, suggesting it is limited to basic, uninspired routines.
In this quote, Albert Camus reflects on the simplicity and perhaps emptiness of the modern human experience, encapsulating it in a single, dismissive sentence that suggests our existence revolves around basic physical desires and passive consumption of information, which leaves little room for deeper meaning or exploration. It underscores a sense of exhaustion with the limitations of contemporary life, provoking thought about the importance of substance and engagement beyond mere survival and routine.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the meaning of life in a philosophy class.
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.
At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.
More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand, and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not legitimacy.
The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.
There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean - hell, I know that.
Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
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