Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
Emile ZolaRead
Selling beauty is something I can understand. Even selling false beauty seems perfectly natural; it's a sign of progress.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the commercialization of beauty, acknowledging both genuine and artificial beauty as part of societal progress.
Emile Zola's quote explores the concept of beauty in the commercial realm, suggesting that the act of selling beauty, whether authentic or not, is a relatable endeavor. It implies that even the promotion of false beauty is an indicator of societal development, highlighting how societal values and perceptions of beauty evolve with time and economic progress.
In practice
In a presentation on the impact of advertising on beauty standards.
Blow the candle out, I don't need to see what my thoughts look like.
I believe that all is illusion and vanity outside the treasure of truths slowly accumulated, and which will never again be lost. I believe that the sum of these truths, always increasing, will at last confer on man incalculable power and peace, if not happiness. Yes, I believe in the final triumph of life.
A ruined man fell from her hands like a ripe fruit, to lie rotting on the ground.
Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they've been taught is wrong!
Did not one spend the first half of one's days in dreams of happiness and the second half in regrets and terrors?
They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.
Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.
Music really isn’t supposed to be perfect. It’s all about people relating to each other and doing something that’s really from the soul. It must come from the soul.
The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me.
I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It's a parallel thing in me.
The first act is writing, the second act is filming, the third act is releasing. If you have to partake in the third act, it hurts the first act of the next one. It's like a prizefight. You get punched.
The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.
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