Weil on the banality of evil

     "Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continuously fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good.  No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil.  This is the truth about authentic good and evil.  With fictional good and evil it is the other way round.  Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm."

     "Rien n’est beau, merveilleux, perpétuellement nouveau, perpétuellement surprenant, chargé d’une douce et continuelle ivresse, comme le bien.  Rien n’est désertique, morne, monotone, ennuyeux comme le mal.  Il en est ainsi du bien et du mal authentiques.  Le bien et le mal fictifs ont le rapport contraire.  Le bien fictive est ennuyeux et plat.  Le mal fictive est varié, intéressant, attachant, profound, plein de séductions."

     Simone Weil (writing under the pseudonym Emile Novis), "Morale et littérature" ("Morality and literature"), Cahiers du sud:  revue mensuelle de littérature 31, no. 1 (janvier 1944):  40 (40-45), as translated in A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone, "Touching the void:  Simone Weil’s ethical life class," Times literary supplement  no. 6392 (November 14, 2025):  20 (19-20).  "Morality and literature" is also present in several anthologies.