The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of understanding and preserving history. Destroying the past undermines our ability to learn and grow from it.
Simone Weil's quote suggests that the annihilation of historical events, memories, and cultural heritage is a significant moral transgression. By erasing the past, we lose valuable lessons, contexts, and identities that shape our present and future, highlighting the necessity of acknowledging and learning from history rather than dismissing or destroying it.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one might quote this to emphasize how understanding our history helps shape our future.
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
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.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
The past stays put, I just keep moving farther away from it.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
The Behaviorist cannot find consciousness in the test-tube of his science.
Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea - whether itβs about politics or sports - what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because we canβt stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then? An ideology - rigid and unyielding.
At the back of it there lies the central citadel of obstinacy: I will not give up my right to myself--the thing God intends you to give up if ever you are going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
The moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject slavery, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.
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