“What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?""I don't know. My… my code of morals, perhaps.""Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?""Comprehension.”

Albert Camus

Explore This Quote Further

Quote by Albert Camus: “What on earth prompted you to take a hand in thi… - Image 1

Similar quotes

“No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.”


“Ce que je sais de la morale, c'est au football que je le dois.(I know of morality, it is football that I owe.)”


“Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football (soccer).”


“What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me--that is what I understand. And these two certainties--my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle--I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope which I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition?”


“You alone will know why I killed myself. You know my principles. I hate those who commit suicide. Besause of what they do TO OTHERS. If you have to do it, you must disguise it. Out of kindness.”


“What I know, what is certain, what I cannot deny,what I cannot reject—this is what counts. I can negate everythingof that part of me that lives on vague nostalgias, except this desirefor unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion. Ican refute everything in this world surrounding me that offends orenraptures me, except this chaos, this sovereign chance and thisdivine equivalence which springs from anarchy. I don’t knowwhether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I knowthat I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for mejust now to know it. What can a meaning outside my conditionmean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch,what resists me—that is what I understand. And these twocertainties—my appetite for the absolute and for unity and theimpossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonableprinciple—I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What othertruth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lackand which means nothing within the limits of my condition?”