Simone Weil Quotes
A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
Weil, Simone. The Notebooks of Simone Weil. Translated by Arthur F. Wills, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1956, p. 248.
He works were banned and he was banished by both the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese during the Vietnam War where he tried to be a mediator and was present at the Paris Peace Talks. As late as 2007 he was still not allowed into Vietnam.
Quintus Horatius Flaccus. The incessant concentration on things that are false exhibited by the kinds of people Horace described has been observed in the political scene of almost all eras. The preoccupation with witches was one of the most famous, and a very recent one was the large number of people who were attracted by the belief that President Barack Obama was a Muslim who was born abroad despite the fact that Obama had been a regular attendant at Christian Protestant Churches for his adult like and had never worshipped in a Mosque. The “birthers” focused on the falsehood that Obama was not born in America despite the facts that there were contemporaneous newspaper announcements of his birth in Hawaii and the State of Hawaii authenticated his Hawaiian birth certificate.
The principle applies to religious and political doctrine, both.
See {115604} for a similar sentiment from England.
Simone Adolphine Weil was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. The mathematician André Weil was her brother.
