"Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses."

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More quotes from: Simone Weil

• "A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if ..."
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• "A mind enclosed in language is in prison. "
• "A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its ..."
• "A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are ..."
• "All sins are attempts to fill voids. "
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• "Beauty always promises, but never gives anything. "
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• "Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will ..."
• "Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as ..."
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• "Every perfect life is a parable invented by God. "
• "Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of ..."
• "Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge. "
• "For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no ..."
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• "Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it ..."
• "Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite ..."
• "Humility is attentive patience. "
• "I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots ..."
• "I can, therefore I am. "
• "I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on ..."
• "I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which ..."
• "If Germany, thanks to and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy ..."
• "If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and ..."

• "If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on ..."
• "Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life. "
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• "In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new ..."
• "In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what ..."
• "In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs. "
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• "Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure. "
• "More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to ..."
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• "Nothing is less instructive than a machine. "
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• "Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat. "
• "Purity is the power to contemplate defilement. "
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• "The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes. "
• "The future is made of the same stuff as the present. "
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• "To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile. "
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