We Call First Truths Those

I Felt As I Hadn't Felt For Ages. I Had A Foolish Desire To Burst Into Tears. For The First Time I'd Realized How All These People Loathed Me.

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 That Fancies It Knows Everything And Therefore Claims For Itself The Right To Kill. The Soul Of The Murderer Is Blind; And There Can Be No True Goodness Nor True Love Without The Utmost Clear-sightedness.

Many Fledgling Moralists In Those Days Were Going About Our Town Proclaiming There Was Nothing To Be Done About It And We Should Bow To The Inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, And Their Friends Might Give One Answer Or Another, But Its Conclusion Was Always The Same, Their Certitude That A Fight Must Be Put Up, In This Way Or That, And There Must Be No Bowing Down... There Was Nothing Admirable About This Attitude; It Was Merely Logical.

One Plays At Being Immortal And After A Few Weeks One Doesn't Even Know Whether Or Not One Can Hang On Till The Next Day.

Poor And Free Rather Than Rich And Enslaved. Of Course, Men Want To Be Both Rich And Free, And This Is What Leads Them At Times To Be Poor And Enslaved.