# Quote — Albert Camus, The Plague

> 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.

- Author: [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md)
- Book: [The Plague](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#The_Plague_(1947)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [truth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/truth.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-plague/there-always-comes

## More from this book

> 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)