Only One Duty
“If I had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank. On the last page I should write: I recognize only one duty, and that is to love.” ALBERT CAMUS · NOTEBOOKS 1935-1942
Camus jotted this in his private notebook as a young man, and there is something wonderful about the image. A whole book on morality, all its rules and arguments and fine distinctions, and he throws out ninety-nine pages in a hundred. What remains fits on a single line. I recognize only one duty, and that is to love.
It would be easy to read this as sentimental, but it is not. Camus was not a soft thinker, and he did not mean the warm feeling we call love on greeting cards. He meant something closer to attention, loyalty, the refusal to abandon. A duty is not a mood. You can be bound to love someone on a day you do not feel like it, the way a nurse is bound to a patient, the way a friend is bound to show up. That is the kind of love he is talking about, the kind you can be held to.
Notice too how it simplifies things. Faced with a hard choice, we often drown in considerations. This one line cuts through. What would love actually do here. Usually you already know.
Today, when a decision feels tangled, throw out the ninety-nine pages. Ask the single question on the last page. What does love require of me now. Then do that.
