The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.
Interpretation
Desiring to always be correct indicates a lack of depth in one's thinking.
Albert Camus suggests that an obsession with being right reveals a shallow and unrefined intellect. This desire to always prove oneself correct can stem from insecurity and a failure to engage with more profound thoughts or discussions, highlighting a certain vulgarity in such a mindset.
In practice
In a debate about opinions, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of open-mindedness over being argumentative.
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.
The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporfic to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites.
I don't care about age very much.
What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.
We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age. We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change.
The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven.
Let us truly be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people….Let us make the temple, with temple worship and temple covenants and temple marriage, our ultimate earthly goal and the supreme mortal experience.
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