Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.
Interpretation
This quote discusses the growing dominance of state authority over individual autonomy in society.
Simone Weil highlights the historical trend where advancements in society have led to an increased submission of individuals to state authority, suggesting that in modern Europe, this is the predominant form of obedience. She critiques the loss of diverse sources of authority and moral guidance, indicating that people increasingly look to the state as the sole arbiter of legitimacy and obedience.
In practice
In a political debate discussing the role of the government.
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?
I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.
Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
Of the many unforeseen consequences of typography, the emergence of nationalism is, perhaps, the most familiar
Human nature is such that people are born with a love of profit If they follow these inclinations, they will struggle and snatch from each other, and inclinations to defer or yield will die.
If you care to see God, be pure. If you will not be pure, you will grow more and more impure.
There is no getting around the reality that the second Iraq war was a war of choice; had it been carried out differently, it still would have been an expensive choice and almost certainly a bad one.
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