Simone Weil Quotes

If children were brought up to become non-conformists it would only ruin their lives. So parents all over China who loved their children told them to do as Chairman Mao said. It was not possible to tell them anything else.

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.

What we call “morals” is simply blind obedience to words of command.

It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience.

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.

… obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame A mechanized automaton.

Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find that far more, and far more hideous, crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.

Nothing is a sin when you obey the orders of a priest

In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.

How could there be any difference between The Messenger and me? I am his slave, his servant, his son. He is the leader, the only spokesman for the Black Muslims.

Religion is for followers... Followers and puppets.

Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason.

When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the rule blindly .

Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; the subject, not the citizen... The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.

Religion fosters servility and solipsism.

Obedience is the crown and honour of all virtue.

Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.

All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.

You may have your suspicions, your fears, you may even believe there is something, somewhere, terribly, drastically wrong, but because someone else is in charge, because there is a part of the system above you which you don't know, you don't question it, you even distrust your own doubts.

Obey something, and you will have a chance to learn what is best to obey. But if you begin by obeying nothing, you will end by obeying the devil and all his invited friends.

Every fool believes what his teachers tell him, and calls his credulity science or morality as confidently as his father called it divine revelation.

Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.

Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey.