How hard it is, how bitter it is to become a man!
Interpretation
The quote reflects the struggles and challenges of growing up and taking on adult responsibilities.
Albert Camus emphasizes the difficult transition into adulthood, highlighting the emotional and psychological burdens that come with assuming maturity. This bittersweet process is often marked by the loss of innocence and the weight of social expectations, revealing the profound struggles that define what it means to be human.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire young adults stepping into their futures.
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.
It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same. Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.
It's funny, our beauty standard has become harder and tougher because we live in a tough age. I don't think anyone wants to walk down the street and feel vulnerable. You want to walk down the street and feel like you're in control.
I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.
Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.
Whether, therefore, we receive what we ask for, or do not receive it, let us still continue steadfast in prayer. For to fail in obtaining the desires of our heart, when God so wills it, is not worse than to receive it; for we know not as He does, what is profitable to us.
It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they're not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.
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