“Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.”
Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 61
Context: The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.
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Simone Weil 193
French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909–1943Related quotes
“He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 121.
Source: The Unconscious Civilization
Elliott Carter (1977). The Writings of Elliott Carter, p.186. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Cited in Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226012670.
Source: 1900s, Notes d'un Peintre (Notes of a Painter) (1908), p. 411
“My works are 12-tone compositions, not 12-tone compositions”
Stuckenschmidt, Hans Heinz. 1977, in Schoenberg: His Life, World and Work; translated from the German by Humphrey Searle. p. 349.
after 1930
Comme on craint peu de choquer la vanité, on arrive fort vite en Italie au ton de l'intimité, et à dire des choses personnelles.
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 6
Speech on Women in a changing World (26 July 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105007
First term as Prime Minister