Quotation by Simone Weil

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"A Note on Social Democracy" (written 1937), published in Selected Essays, ed. Richard Rees (1962)"Attention and Will" Gravity and Grace (1947, trans. 1952)"A War of Religions" Selected Essays, ed. Richard Rees (1962)"Classical Science and After" (written 1941), published in On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, ed. Richard Rees (1968)"Cold War Policy in 1939" (written 1939), published in Selected Essays, ed. Richard Rees (1962)

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civilization (3) primitive life (3) Canada and Canadians (2) Americans (2) decisions (1) Africa and Africans (1) cruelty (1) poverty and the poor (1) Army, British (1) Canadians, French (1)

Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.

Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1910–1943), French philosopher, mystic. "Hitler and Roman Foreign Policy," Nouveaux Cahiers (Jan. 1, 1940).

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