Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing the needs of all individuals equally.
Simone Weil's quote underscores the principle of equality, asserting that every human being deserves equal attention and consideration in societal institutions and interactions. It calls for a collective acknowledgment of diverse needs and advocates for a systemic approach that ensures fairness and equity in how society treats its members.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social justice to emphasize the need for equal treatment of all individuals.
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 first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.
I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.
Luck serves ... as rationalization for every people that is not master of its own destiny.
Hunger is a people-made phenomenon, so the central issue is power: the power of those who make the decisions about what is grown and who, or what, it's grown for.
The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled again.
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
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