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The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve.

Simone Weil

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Simone Weil
Age: 34 †
Born: 1909
Born: February 3
Died: 1943
Died: August 24
Autobiographer
Diarist
French Resistance Fighter
Philosopher
Poet
Teacher
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
Paris
France
Simone Adolphine Weil
Conservatives
Opponents
Innovation
Capitalism
Struggle
Make
Conserve
Innovators
Defenders

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Renunciation is submission to time.
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Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
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Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.
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When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.
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Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain distance, without coming any nearer, the very being who is as necessary to him as food.
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It is impossible that the whole of truth should not be present at every time and every place, available for anyone who desires it.
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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.
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one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.
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Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it.
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We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
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We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.
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The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.
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The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.
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We do injury to a child if we bring it up in a narrow Christianity, which prevents it from ever becoming capable of perceiving that there are treasures of purest gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Laical education does an even greater injury to children. It covers up those treasures, and those of Christianity as well.
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I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
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We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
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The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.
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the instruments of power - arms, gold, machines, magical or technical secrets - always exist independently of him who disposes of them, and can be taken up by others. Consequently all power is unstable.
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More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
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If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
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