You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.

The line suggests that private joy and public achievement often provoke envy or resentment in others; society “forgives” the fortunate only when their good fortune is made socially useful. Camus’s phrasing turns happiness and success into quasi-offenses that require expiation through generosity, exposing a moral economy in which recognition is conditional. Read this way, the quote critiques both the pettiness of collective judgment and the pressure placed on individuals to justify their well-being. It also implies an ethic: if one accepts that one’s advantages are relational—visible to, and affecting, others—then sharing becomes not mere charity but a way of restoring solidarity.