Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatusโthe bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.
Simone WeilModern war appears as a struggle led by all the State apparatuses and their general staffs against all men old enough to bear arms.
Simone WeilReal genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.
Simone WeilOur patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.
Simone Weil