Croire qu’on s’élève parce qu’en gardant les mêmes bas penchants (exemple : désir de l’emporter sur autrui) on leur a donné des objets élevés. On s’é… - Simone Weil

"A man thinks he is dying for his country," said Anatole France, "but he is dying for a few industrialists." But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world. Most people hardly ever realize this, because it is rare that the very same man thinks and puts his thought into action.

There are those people who try to elevate their souls like someone who continually jumps from a standing position in the hope that forcing oneself to jump all day — and higher every day — they would no longer fall back down, but rise to heaven. Thus occupied, they no longer look to heaven. We cannot even take one step toward heaven. The vertical direction is forbidden to us. But if we look to heaven long-term, God descends and lifts us up. God lifts us up easily. As Aeschylus says, ‘That which is divine is without effort.’ There is an ease in salvation more difficult for us than all efforts. In one of Grimm’s accounts, there is a competition of strength between a giant and a little tailor. The giant throws a stone so high that it takes a very long time before falling back down. The little tailor throws a bird that never comes back down. That which does not have wings always comes back down in the end.