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"He doesn't play the game ... He refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler. But Meursault, contrary to appearances, doesn't want to make life simpler. He says what he is, he refuses to hide his feelings and society immediately feels threatened."
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"Unfortunately, people who always tell the truth don't have many friends."

"People on the worldly path, to them 'we' say, 'Practice complete honesty. If you cannot do that, then practice honesty within principle of limits. If you cannot do that and if you practice dishonesty, do it within limits. This principle is indeed what will take you further ahead."

"When you speak, be sure of what you are speaking. Don't be rambling full of words that have no integrity or truth. Nobody wants to confide in you when they doubt what you say. If you are filled with untruths, those characteristics make it hard for anyone to believe in you."

"It is completely raw, the sort of thing I feel free to do with the door shut-it's the story undressed, standing up in nothing but its socks and undershorts."

"Even from the point of view of coquetry, pure and simple," he had told her, "can't you see how much of your attraction you throw away when you stoop to lying?"
Explore more quotes by Albert Camus

"I am strangely tired, not from having talked so much but at the mere thought of what I still have to say."

"It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money."

"O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us!" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr...! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately!"

"How did I picture the life after the grave?I Fairly bawled out at him: 'A life in which I can remember this life on earth. That's all I want of it."

"Believe me, for certain men at least, not taking what one doesn't desire is the hardest thing in the world."

"Yes, one can wager war in this world, ape love, torture one's fellow man, or merely say evil of one's neighbor while knitting. But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman."

"Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little connection with such beginnings. The worm is in man's heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight from light."
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