People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.
Interpretation
As people age, their appearance reflects their life experiences and the essence of their character.
Christopher Hitchens expresses the idea that aging brings a visible manifestation of one's life story and moral character. Citing George Orwell, he implies that the physical features we develop over time are a mirror of our inner life and the choices we've made, suggesting that age often brings a deeper understanding of oneself and how we present to the world.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, I could cite this quote to highlight the lessons learned over the years.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
I care only to know, if possible, the lasting meaning that lies in all religious doctrine from the beginning till now.
The really difficult moral issues arise, not from a confrontation of good and evil, but from a collision between two goods
All life is part of a complex relationship in which each is dependent upon the others, taking from, giving to and living with all the rest.
One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.
...the most important things we need to manage can't be measured.
The religions that fascinate me and, you know, could possibly tempt me are not the ones that involve faith or belief. They're the ones that offer you the opportunity to know the spirit or deity.
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