"The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves"
About this Quote
The pivot is the brutal verb choice: "sterilize". Not "hurt" or "limit" but render barren, unproductive, unable to generate surprise. In Camus`s framing, to love someone as property is to disinfect them of their otherness, to make them safe for the lover`s narrative. You don`t just want the person; you want the person to stop becoming. That`s the subtext: possession isn`t intimacy, it`s risk management. It kills the unruly, open-ended part of a human being - the very part that makes love feel alive.
Contextually, this sits comfortably in Camus`s broader suspicion of consoling myths. In an absurd universe where meaning isn`t guaranteed, people reach for certainty wherever they can get it, including in relationships. Possessive love becomes a small private religion: a promise that at least one thing won`t slip away. Camus punctures that fantasy and forces a harder ethical question: if love requires freedom, how often are we just baptizing control with tenderness?
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Unverified source: L'Homme révolté (Albert Camus, 1951)
Evidence: Le goût de la possession est à ce point insatiable qu'il peut survivre à l'amour même. Aimer, alors, c'est stériliser l'aimé. (p. 323 (French ed.; section often titled/quoted as "Roman et révolte")). This wording is Camus's original French, cited verbatim by CNRTL (a French lexical/quotation refe... Other candidates (1) The Rebel (Albert Camus, 2013) compilation97.4% Albert Camus. horrified by suffering than by the fact that it does not endure ... The desire for possession is insati... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Camus, Albert. (2026, February 11). The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-desire-for-possession-is-insatiable-to-such-a-22895/
Chicago Style
Camus, Albert. "The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves." FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-desire-for-possession-is-insatiable-to-such-a-22895/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves." FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-desire-for-possession-is-insatiable-to-such-a-22895/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.
