I never quite understand the way society decides who is beautiful and who is not. But an open face and a capacity for kindness always feel like reliable signifiers to me.
Interpretation
Society's standards of beauty are often unclear, yet kindness and an open demeanor are true indicators of beauty.
Tilda Swinton's quote reflects on the subjective and often arbitrary nature of societal beauty standards. She suggests that instead of adhering to conventional definitions of beauty, one should look to the qualities of kindness and openness as more reliable markers of a person's true beauty and worth.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about beauty standards in a classroom setting.
I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place.
I don't have a career, I have a life. I don't have an exterior judgment on what would be good or bad for me.
For a lot of actors, there's a sort of code of honor around playing something other than yourself, which I just don't have. I love feeling like I'm - I won't even say acting out, but performing in some deep seam of my consciousness or my family's consciousness or my past. That's really amusing to me.
If we don't accept loneliness, then capitalism wins hands down. Because capitalism is all about trying to convince people that you can distract yourself, that you can make it better. And it ain't true.
Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.
You could not be filled with hate and be beautiful. Like any other girl, I wanted to be beautiful. But I was filled with hate.
Within every girl is the possibility of arousing emotion. Without emotion there is no beauty.
A fine horse or a beautiful woman, I cannot look at them unmoved, even now when seventy winters have chilled my blood.
It used to bother me - having bigger, fuller brows. I even plucked them once so I'd fit in, but I hated them and couldn't wait for them to grow back. Now I embrace them. I realized the quirky things that make you different are what make you beautiful.
Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence
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