# The Plague - Author: [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) - Quotes: 19 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague ## Quotes > A scourge is not on a human scale, and so people say it isn't real; it's a bad dream that will pass. But is doesn't always pass, and, from bad dream to bad dream, it's the humans who pass, and the humanists first, because they didn't heed the warnings. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/a-scourge-is-not.md) > 'At my age one's got to be sincere. Lying's too much effort.' [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/at-my-age.md) Topics: [lies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies.md), [honesty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/honesty.md) > The evil that is in the 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, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/the-evil-that.md) Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [evil](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/evil.md) > When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/when-a-war.md) Topics: [war](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war.md), [stupidity](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity.md) > "What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?" > > "I don't know. My... my code of morals, perhaps." > > "Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?" > > "Comprehension." [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/what-on-earth.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md) > At that moment he knew what his mother was thinking, and that she loved him. But he knew, too, that to love someone means relatively little; or, rather, that love is never wrong enough to find the word befitting it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/at-that-moment.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md) > In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/in-oran-as-elsewhere.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md) > Query: How to contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting room; by remaining on one's balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by travelling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by queueing at the box-office of theatres and then not booking a seat. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/query-how-to-contrive.md) Topics: [time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/time.md) > 'I'm glad to know he's [Paneloux] better than his sermon.' [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/im-glad-to-know.md) Topics: [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md) > Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/yes-there-was.md) Topics: [responsibility](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility.md) > Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one... [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/yes-everyone-sleeps.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md) > ...there are more things to admire in men than to despise. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/there-are-more.md) Topics: [human nature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/human-nature.md) > He kept the middle way, that's all: he was the type of man for whom one has an affection of the mild but steady order - which is the kind that wears best. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/he-kept-the.md) Topics: [relationships](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/relationships.md) > The important thing isn't the soundness or otherwise of the argument, but for it to make you think. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/the-important-thing.md) Topics: [thinking](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking.md) > He tried to recall what he had read about the disease. Figures floated across his memory, and he recalled that some thirty or so great plagues known to history had accounted for nearly a hundred million deaths. But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one actually sees him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/he-tried-to-recall.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md) > The rest of the story, to Grand's thinking, was very simple. The common lot of married couples. You get married, you go on loving a bit longer, you work. And you work so hard that it makes you forget to love. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/the-rest-of-the.md) Topics: [love](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/love.md), [marriage](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/marriage.md) > There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not 2+2=4. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/there-always-comes.md) Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md) > Can one be a saint without God?, that's the problem, in fact the only problem, I'm up against today. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/can-one-be-a-saint.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [god](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/god.md) > There lay certitude; there, in the daily round. All the rest hung on mere threads and trivial contingencies; you couldn't waste your time on it. The thing was to do your job as it should be done. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/there-lay-certitude.md) Topics: [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md), [responsibility](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/responsibility.md)