If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the nature of human thought as a series of disappointments and limitations.
In this quote, Albert Camus suggests that if we were to document the most important aspects of human intellectual history, it would primarily revolve around our regrets and failures rather than achievements. This implies a deep philosophical contemplation about the impermanence of human success and the weight of our unfulfilled desires and aspirations, highlighting a sense of existential reflection inherent in human experience.
In practice
In a presentation about the philosophical implications of failures in human history, this quote can provide an insightful perspective.
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.
History is a living whole. If one organ be removed, it is nothing but a lifeless mass.
The conscious mind determines the actions, the unconscious mind determines the reactions; and the reactions are just as important as the actions.
The American people do not like neutrality. They would rather a man were on the wrong side than on neither.
Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
A: There is no grand scheme of things. B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact β the fact β that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity. C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity.
A man who has no office to go, to I don't care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.
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