If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that it is more valuable to be skilled in a noble profession than to be incompetent in a harmful one.
Jean-Paul Sartre emphasizes the importance of choosing a career that contributes positively to society over one that inflicts harm, even if the latter might seem more dramatic or impactful. The contrast between a good journalist, who informs the public and has the potential to pursue truth, and a poor assassin, who fails at a morally reprehensible task, highlights the value of integrity and skill in oneβs vocation.
Themes
JournalismEthicsProfessionsSkillMorality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of ethical careers.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes βAll I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
Jean-Paul SartreRead
Similar quotes
The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.
C. S. LewisRead
Basically we could not have peace, or an atmosphere in which peace could grow, unless we recognized the rights of individual human beings... their importance, their dignity... and agreed that was the basic thing that had to be accepted throughout the world.
Eleanor RooseveltRead
Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all gods are one. We have different ways of accepting Him. All ways lead to Him.
Narendra ModiRead
The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.
Duke Of WellingtonRead
People are more slanderous from vanity than from malice.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead