To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
Interpretation
The essence of a person's greatness is revealed in their work, not their personal life.
Simone Weil suggests that when we try to distinguish the achievements of great individuals from their personal lives, we often end up diminishing their significance. The true measure of their greatness lies not in their personal flaws or pettiness, but in the meaningful contributions they make through their work, which reflect the best aspects of who they are.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of pursuing meaningful work, one might quote Simone Weil to emphasize the value of contributions over personal flaws.
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?
In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.
Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!
Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
Great and good are seldom the same man.
I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.
Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor, and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss, he promises life, and pays with death. But God pays as he promises; all his payments are made in pure gold.
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