27 quotes found
“But memory is less disposed to compromise”
“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”
“They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.”
“It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth, in other words to silence.”
“For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering”
“I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.”
“And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of priso...”
“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
“I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the enemy of anyone. I only know...”
“At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore...”
“Do you believe in God, doctor?"No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.”
“And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of plague was ended.”
“We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them.”
“In vain a zealous evangelist with a fely hat and flowing tie threads his way through the crowd, crying without cease: 'God is great and good. Come unto Him.' On the contrary, they all make haste to...”
“In a certain sense it might well be said that his was an exemplary life. He was one of those rare people, rare in our town as elsewhere, who have the courage of their good feelings. What little he ...”
“He was one of those rare people, rare in our town as elsewhere, who have the courage of their good feelings. What little he told of his personal life vouched for acts of kindness and a capacity for...”
“Tarrou had "lost the match," as he put it. But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of know...”
“Why, because an author has more rights than ordinary people, as everybody knows. People will stand much more from him.”
“The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. One the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, i...”
“At the beginning of a pestilence and when it ends, there's always a propensity for rhetoric. In the first case, habits have not yet been lost; in the second, they're returning. It is in the thick o...”
“I know positively - yes Rieux I can say I know the world inside out as no one on earth is free from it. And I know too that we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in careless moment we breath...”
“the evil that is in this world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that however ...”
