If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
The sun is not ridiculous, quite the contrary. On everything I like, on the rust of the construction girders, on the rotten boards of the fence, a miserly, uncertain light falls, like the look you give, after a sleepless night, on decisions made with enthusiasm the day before, on pages you have written in one spurt without crossing out a word.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the complexity of human perception and the interplay between light and darkness in our choices and creations.
In this quote, Sartre illustrates how the sun, often a symbol of clarity and optimism, casts a hesitant and insufficient light on various aspects of life, including our decisions, creative expressions, and the passage of time. The imagery of light touching rust and decay symbolizes a deeper reflection on the aftermath of enthusiasm and the critical light that comes from hindsight, suggesting that our choices are often more complicated than they appear in the moment.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the complexities of choices during a motivational talk.
More from Jean-Paul Sartre
All quotes →All 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.
If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.
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.
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.
Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.
Similar quotes
Some foreign investors accuse us of being unfair to shareholders by using our resources for community development. Yes, this is money that could have made for dividend payouts, but it also is money that's uplifting and improving the quality of life of people in the rural areas where we operate and work. We owe them that.
Things were going very fast now. Too fast to suit him. Fantasy and reality had merged.
The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.
Vast sections of the world's population are inspired by the same desires and live for common interests that bind them together far more than they separate them.
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds.