He who does not realize to what extent shifting fortune and necessity hold in subjection every human spirit, cannot regard as fellow-creatures nor love as he loves himself those whom chance separated from him by an abyss. The variety of constraints pressing upon man give rise to the illusion of several distinct species that cannot communicate. Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that understanding the forces of chance and necessity that impact human lives is essential for true empathy and love towards others.
Simone Weil expresses that recognizing the powerful influences of fate and circumstance on every human being is crucial for developing genuine compassion and understanding. Without this awareness, one may perceive others as separate or different due to the challenges and constraints each individual faces, leading to division rather than solidarity. Only those who comprehend these universal struggles can truly cultivate love and justice toward their fellow beings.
In practice
During a discussion on social inequalities.
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?
How do we see physically? No differently that we do in our consciousness - by means of the productive power of imagination. Consciousness is the eye and ear, the sense for inner and outer meaning.
Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
The despondency that follows makes me feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man who spies a sail, sees himself saved, and suddenly remembers that the lens of his spyglass has a flaw, a blurred spot -- the sail he has seen.
I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.
What is unusual about Earth is that language, literally, has become alive. It has infested matter. It is replicating and defining and building itself. And it is in us.
I have no doubt that the nation has suffered more from undue secrecy than from undue disclosure. The government takes good care of itself.
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