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"A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world."
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"Living honestly is a prerequisite for a clear conscience."

"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then on. There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all."

"Dimitri is dead," she said. It was a statement, not a question, but she was looking to me for confirmation. I wondered if I'd given away something, some hint that there was still more to the story. Or maybe she just needed the certainty of those words. And for a moment, I considered telling them that Dimitri was dead. It was what the Academy would tell them, what the guardians would tell them. It would be easier on them...but somehow, I couldn't stand to lie to them-even if it was a comforting lie. Dimitri would have wanted the whole truth, and his family would too. "No," I said, and for a heartbeat, hope sprang up in everyone's faces-at least until I spoke again. "Dimitri's a Strigoi."

"If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself."
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."

"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."

"The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force alone. As it is not so easy as the detective novels might lead one to believe, one generally relies on politics and joins the cruelest party.What does it matter, after all, if by humiliating one's mind one succeeds in dominating every one? I discovered in myself sweet dreams of oppression."

"Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future."

"You are only excused for happiness and success if you generously agree to share them. But if one is to be happy, one should not worry too much about other people - which means there is no way out. Happy and judged or absolved and miserable."

"I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed."
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