Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 59
Context: A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold and desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium.
Physical labour may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention.
Source: The Visible Hand (1977), p. 75; Cited in: Best (1990, p. 32).
“A quantity growing exponentially toward a limit reaches that limit in a surprisingly short time.”
Thinking in systems: A Primer (2008)
Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 86
Letter to E. Ray Lankester (11 April 1892) Huxley Papers, Imperial College: 30.448
1890s
Citizenship Papers (2003), The Failure of War
Context: In a modern war, fought with modern weapons and on the modern scale, neither side can limit to “the enemy” the damage that it does. These wars damage the world. We know enough by now to know that you cannot damage a part of the world without damaging all of it. Modern war has not only made it impossible to kill “combatants” without killing “noncombatants,” it has made it impossible to damage your enemy without damaging yourself.
"Poem" — these lines are among those quoted on the The Pacifist Memorial http://www.peaceabbey.org/memorial/memorial.htm
The Speed of Darkness (1968)
Context: We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
“Every modern state is totalitarian. It recognizes no limit either factual or legal.”
Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 396
Context: Every modern state is totalitarian. It recognizes no limit either factual or legal. This is why I maintain that no state in the modern world is legitimate. No present-day authority can claim to be instructed by God, for all authority is set in the framework of a totalitarian state. This is why I decide for anarchy.
“She was reaching the limits of how much its possible to change a man”
Source: One Day
