“The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.”

Source: Squaring the Circle (1913), p. 12

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Power of Words (1937), p. 224
Context: What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Thus when war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. It amounts to this, that a self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. But why is it so essential to be able to make war? No one knows, any more than the Trojans knew why it was necessary for them to keep Helen. That is why the good intentions of peace-loving statesman are so ineffectual. If the countries were divided by a real opposition of interests, it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. But when economic and political interests have no meaning apart from war, how can they be peacefully reconciled?

The Haunted Bookshop (1919)
Context: Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.

Morarji Desai speaks about life and celibacy

As quoted in Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984), by William A. DeGregorio, pp. 19–20

Kandinsky's last theoretical statement (Paris, 1942); in Kandinsky, Frank Whitford, Paul Hamlyn Ltd, London 1967, p. 38
1930 - 1944

Cited in: D.H. Stamatis (1999) TQM Engineering Handbook, p. 12
Total Quality Control, 1983

Speaking about the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi the emir of Tablighi Jamaat, March 22, 2020. MEMRI, April 6, 2020 https://www.memri.org/reports/tablighi-jamaat-emir-maulana-mohammad-saad-opposes-social-distancing-during-coronavirus https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/04/tablighi-jamaat-emir-satan-is-using-this-opportunity-to-lead-us-astray-this-is-the-time-to-populate-the-mosques. Published by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). Transcription and Translation from Urdu by New Age Islam Edit Desk https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/tablighi-jamaat-spread-more-than-covid-19-virus;-its-head-maulana-saad-kandhalvi-propagated-un-islamic-obscurantism-and-exclusion,-as-has-been-tablighi-practice-since-1926/d/121488

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations