There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul.
Interpretation
True grandeur can be found in selflessness and loyalty, not in weakness.
Simone Weil's quote emphasizes that genuine nobility arises from a deep sense of loyalty to principles and commitments rather than from a place of inferiority or submission due to fear or lack of strength. It suggests that true dignity and greatness stem from upholding one's ideals and responsibilities voluntarily, rather than being forced or manipulated into submission out of a sense of worthlessness.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about integrity and loyalty to principles during a leadership seminar.
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 Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.
The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
A 'fair' fight between non-equals is not fair, and being blind to power is an implicit endorsement of the powerful.
It is absurd to say that there are neither ruins nor curiosities in America when they have their mothers and their manners.
The great lie is that it is civilization. It's not civilized. It has been literally the most blood thirsty brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. That is not civilization. That's the great lie, is that it represents civilization.
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