Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.
Interpretation
True beauty transcends time and captures a sense of the eternal.
Simone Weil's quote suggests that all things deemed beautiful possess a quality that links them to eternity. This beauty is not just superficial; it resonates with a depth that inspires a connection beyond the fleeting nature of life, inviting us to appreciate that what we find beautiful often reflects something timeless and profound.
In practice
In a speech on art, you might say, 'As Simone Weil remarked, everything beautiful has a mark of eternity, reminding us of the deeper meanings behind art.'
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
A prophet is not someone with special visions, just someone blind to most of what others see
I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile.
Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.
You can't control the fact that you are born a white man or born into wealth. When people say, 'Check your privilege,' they're saying, 'Acknowledge how these factors helped you move through life.' They're not saying apologize for it.
Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.
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