The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.
Interpretation
Camus suggests that boredom is a universal human experience, leading people to develop routines and habits.
In this quote, Albert Camus reflects on the nature of human existence, proposing that boredom is an intrinsic part of life that drives individuals to create and adhere to various habits. This perspective highlights the existential struggle between seeking meaning and the often monotonous reality of daily life, suggesting that much of what people do is a response to the underlying void of boredom that they encounter.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life.
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 considered mores to be one of the great general causes responsible for the maintenance of a democratic republic . . . the term "mores" . . . meaning . . . habits of the heart.
You train yourself in the art of being mysterious to everyone. My dear friend! What if there were no one, who cared about guessing your riddle, what pleasure would you then take in it?
When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.
I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made.
Will holding a secret in your heart make it any less true? If you never tell, never speak of it, will it become only a dream, less than a dream, a nightmare half-remembered? Oh, if only the gods would be so good. (Catelyn)
I think there is no way to write about being alone. To write is to tell something to somebody to communicate to others. . . . Solitude is noncommunication, the absence of others, the presence of a self sufficient to itself.
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