January 13, 2025

Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.

Albert Camus (1913-1960), French writer, L’Homme révolté 1951, Jay p.74

Your degree of greatness will be left for others to determine after you are gone; what matters here is what are your ideals, if any?

What we need are idealists without illusions (as John Kennedy described himself), not idealists—like Camus—who have no clue as to how to move the machinery of governments in the most beneficial direction. Idealists can get themselves elected, but until they become realists they accomplish little.