"One hundred and fifty years of metaphysical rebellion and of nihilism have witnessed
the persistent reappearance, under different guises, of the same
ravaged countenance: the face of human protest. All of them, decrying the human
condition and its creator, have affirmed the solitude of man and the nonexistence
of any kind of morality. But, at the same time, they have all tried to construct a purely terrestrial
kingdom where their chosen principles will hold sway. As rivals of the Creator, they
have inescapably been led to the point of reconstructing creation according to their own concepts.
Those who rejected, for the sake of the world they had just created, all other principles but desire
and power, have rushed to suicide or madness and have proclaimed the apocalypse. As for the rest, who
wanted to create their own principles, they have chosen pomp and ceremony, the
world of appearances, or banality, or again murder and destruction."
- Albert Camus, The Rebel