I like these people swarming on the sidewalks, wedged into a little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs, cold lands, and the sea streaming like a wet wash. I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the duality of human existence and the connection people have to their environment.
In this quote, Albert Camus expresses an appreciation for the complexity of individuals, who are influenced by their surroundings and simultaneously possess an inner life that transcends their immediate reality. The imagery of being 'hemmed in' by the cold and fog evokes a sense of confinement and existential struggle, while the notion of being 'double' suggests that people experience both their tangible reality and a more profound, often hidden, existence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about urban life and the complexities of human relationships.
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 human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.
Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.
Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant.
Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream
Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.