A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again and look with terror at the wall, until one day he begins afresh to beat his head against it; and once again he will faint. And so on endlessly and without hope. One day he will wake up on the other side of the wall.
ATTRIBUTION:
Simone Weil (1909–1943), French philosopher, mystic. repr. In Selected Essays, ed. Richard Rees (1962). “Human Personality,” La Table Ronde (December 1950).
