Lectures on Philosophy Quotes

“Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.”
― Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.”
― Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy

“One can submit to, but one cannot accept the way
production is now organised. If one stops oneself from thinking of all this, one makes oneself an accomplice in what is happening. One has to do something quite different: take one's place in this system of things and do something about it.”
― Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy

“[The State] is a brute force; obedience is a necessity not a duty. Or rather, one has a duty towards oneself not to knock one's head up against the brick wall of the state when it can serve no purpose. On the other hand, one has a duty, and not a right, never to let one atom of the liberty which the state allows to disappear; never to accept official ideology, but to create centres of independent thought. One has a duty to fight against the oppression of the state in so far as doing this does not result in suicide.”
― Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy