I Rebel Therefore I Exist Quotes

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I rebel; therefore I exist.
Albert Camus
Therefore the first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe. The malady experienced by a single man becomes a mass plague. In our daily trials rebellion plays the same role as does the "cogito" in the realm of thought: it is the first piece of evidence. But this evidence lures the individual from his solitude. It founds its first value on the whole human race. I rebel—therefore we exist.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
We must now embark on the subject of this convulsive effort to control the world and to introduce a universal rule. We have arrived at the moment when rebellion, rejecting every aspect of servitude, attempts to annex all creation. Every time it experiences a setback, we have already seen that the political solution, the solution of conquest, is formulated. Henceforth, with the introduction of moral nihilism, it will retain, of all its acquisitions, only the will to power. In principle, the rebel only wanted to conquer his own existence and to maintain it in the face of God. But he forgets his origins and, by the law of spiritual imperialism, he sets out in search of world conquest by way of an infinitely multiplied series of murders. He drove God from His heaven, but now that the spirit of metaphysical rebellion openly joins forces with revolutionary movements, the irrational claim for freedom paradoxically adopts reason as a weapon, and as the only means of conquest which appears entirely human. With the death of God, mankind remains; and by this we mean the history that we must understand and shape. Nihilism, which, in the very midst of rebellion, smothers the force of creation, only adds that one is justified in using every means at one's disposal. Man, on an earth that he knows is henceforth solitary, is going to add, to irrational crimes, the crimes of reason that are bent on the triumph of man. To the "I rebel, therefore we exist," he adds, with prodigious plans in mind which even include the death of rebellion: "And we are alone.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
In this desert everything begins to flower again. "The terrifying significance of an unpremeditated cry of joy cannot be understood while the long night of faith and reason endures." This night is drawing to a close, and a dawn will break which is not the dawn of revolution but of insurrection. Insurrection is, in itself, an asceticism which rejects all forms of consolation. The insurgent will not be in agreement with other men except in so far as, and as long as, their egotism coincides with his. His real life is led in solitude where he will assuage, without restraint, his appetite for existing, which is his only reason for existence. In this respect individualism reaches a climax. It is the negation of everything that denies the individual and the glorification of everything that exalts and ministers to the individual. What, according to Stirner, is good? "Everything of which I can make use." What am I, legitimately, authorized to do? "Everything of which I am capable." Once again, rebellion leads to the justification of crime. Stirner not only has attempted to justify crime (in this respect the terrorist forms of anarchy are directly descended from him), but is visibly intoxicated by the perspectives that he thus reveals. "To break with what is sacred, or rather to destroy the sacred, could become universal. It is not a new revolution that is approaching—but is not a powerful, proud, disrespectful, shameless, conscienceless crime swelling like a thundercloud on the horizon, and can you not see that the sky, heavy with foreboding, is growing dark and silent?" Here we can feel the somber joy of those who create an apocalypse in a garret. This bitter and imperious logic can no longer be held in check, except by an I which is determined to defeat every form of abstraction and which has itself become abstract and nameless through being isolated and cut off from its roots. There are no more crimes and no more imperfections, and therefore no more sinners. We are all perfect.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Rebellion's demand is unity; historical revolution's demand is totality. The former starts from a negative supported by an affirmative, the latter from absolute negation and is condemned to every aspect of slavery in order to fabricate an affirmative that is dismissed until the end of time. One is creative, the other nihilist. The first is dedicated to creation so as to exist more and more completely; the second is forced to produce results in order to negate more and more completely. The historical revolution is always obliged to act in the hope, which is invariably disappointed, of one day really existing. Even unanimous consent will not suffice to create its existence. "Obey," said Frederick the Great to his subjects; but when he died, his words were: "I am tired of ruling slaves." To escape this absurd destiny, the revolution is and will be condemned to renounce, not only its own principles, but nihilism as well as purely historical values in order to rediscover the creative source of rebellion. Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history. Undoubtedly, it has nothing but scorn for the formal and mystifying morality to be found in bourgeois society. But its folly has been to extend this scorn to every moral demand. At the very sources of its inspiration and in its most profound transports is to be found a rule that is not formal but that nevertheless can serve as a guide. Rebellion, in fact, says— and will say more and more explicitly— that revolution must try to act, not in order to come into existence at some future date in the eyes of a world reduced to acquiescence, but in terms of the obscure existence that is already made manifest in the act of insurrection. This rule is neither formal nor subject to history, it is what can be best described by examining it in its pure state—in artistic creation. Before doing so, let us only note that to the "I rebel, therefore we exist" and the "We are alone" of metaphysical rebellion, rebellion at grips with history adds that instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let live in order to create what we are.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Sending out the Disciples Luke 10 1: AFTER THESE THINGS THE LORD APPOINTED OTHER SEVENTY DISCIPLES AND HE SENT THEM TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE INTO EVERY CITY AND PLACE; WHITHER HE HIMSELF WOULD COME God is here and now. God is not something outside you, God is within you. God is the innermost core of existence. That is what Jesus means with: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is near". God is not separate from the creation. He is one with the creation. When you understand this, your life becomes a prayer. When you understand this, you will understand that existence is a family. You will understand that life is togetherness. When we discover our authentic inner being, the kingdom of God, we understand that everybody is a messenger. We discover that the divine source expands, and we spread love to all with whom we interact. Jesus sent out his disciples two and two, so that they did not have to go alone. They went two and two in friendship, in love, in trust, so that they could help each other. THEREFORE SAID HE UNTO THEM, THE HARVEST TRULY IS GREAT, BUT THE LABORERS ARE FEW The harvest is great, but there are not many laborers. People are deaf and blind. Somebody like Jesus comes, and you do not want to listen. It has always been like this. Rather than listening to Jesus, people get so jealous of Jesus, that they crucified him. Only very aware and understanding people will listen to Jesus. GO YOUR WAYS: BEHOLD I SEND YOU FORTH AS LAMBS AMONG THE WOLVES Jesus knows that he is sending his disciples into a dangerous world. People will not understand what they say, they do not want to listen, and they cling to their ideas and their tradition. Jesus knows that trust is to be attacked. He knows that love is to be attacked. CARRY NEITHER PURSE, NOR SHOES, AND SALUTE NO MAN BY THE WAY AND INTO WHATSOVER HOUSE YE ENTER, FIRST SAY, PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE Jesus says that the love and the truth can create troubles for you. "Do not carry purse, do not wear shoes, go barefoot. Do not salute no man on the road". Be ordinary, be simple, be egoless. Jesus says bring peace to the house, because only in that peaceful milieu can the message can delievered. Create a spiritual vibration of peace, spread the feeling of peace, and if you are really feeling it, it will spread. When somebody comes to see you, settle within yourself, Become silent. And you will see a change in the man. We are joined together by our hearts. We exist as parts of one heart. That heart is God. If you create a feeling of peace, it will spread around you. If your gift of peace is accepted, it will be good. If it is not accepted, if you gift is rejcted, it is also good. The peace will still shower on you. HE THAT HEARETH YOU, HEARETH ME, AND HE THAT DESPISETH YOU, DESPISETH ME: AND HE THAT DESPISETH ME DESPISETH HIM THAT SENT ME Jesus says: If people hear you, they hear me. And if they hear me, they hear the one who has sent me.
Swami Dhyan Giten (The Way, the Truth and the Life: On Jesus Christ, the Man, the Mystic and the Rebel)
I rebel; therefore I exist.
Dennis
I rebel, therefore we exist.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Envy” is not the emotion I have in mind, but it is the clearest manifestation of an emotion that has remained nameless; it is the only element of a complex emotional sum that men have permitted themselves to identify. Envy is regarded by most people as a petty, superficial emotion and, therefore, it serves as a semihuman cover for so inhuman an emotion that those who feel it seldom dare admit it even to themselves. Mankind has lived with it, has observed its manifestations and, to various extents, has been ravaged by it for countless centuries, yet has failed to grasp its meaning and to rebel against its exponents. Today, that emotion is the leitmotif, the sense of life of our culture. It is all around us, we are drowning in it, it is almost explicitly confessed by its more brazen exponents—yet men continue to evade its existence and are peculiarly afraid to name it, as primitive people were once afraid to pronounce the name of the devil. That emotion is: hatred of the good for being the good. This hatred is not resentment against some prescribed view of the good with which one does not agree. For instance, if a child resents some conventional type of obedient boy who is constantly held up to him as an ideal to emulate, this is not hatred of the good: the child does not regard that boy as good, and his resentment is the product of a clash between his values and those of his elders (though he is too young to grasp the issue in such terms). Similarly, if an adult does not regard altruism as good and resents the adulation bestowed upon some “humanitarian,” this is a clash between his values and those of others, not hatred of the good. Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one’s own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.
Ayn Rand (The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution)
Camus believed such common values could be achieved through the recognition that all human beings are children of the absurd. It is a subjection to a common tragic fate and our protest against our condition which unites and binds us together in a “solidarity of chains”. “I rebel”, wrote Camus, “therefore we exist”.
Academy of Ideas