”The powerful forces that we have to fight are preparing
to crush us; and it is true that they can prevent us from existing fully,
that is to say from stamping the world with the seal of our will. But
there is one sphere in which they are powerless. They cannot stop us
from working towards a clear comprehension of the object of our
efforts, so that, if we cannot accomplish that which we will, we may at
least have willed it, and not just have blindly wished for it; and, on the
other hand, our weakness may indeed prevent us from winning, but
not from comprehending the force by which we are crushed. Nothing
in the world can prevent us from thinking clearly.

…

Living man can on no account cease to be hemmed in on all sides by an
absolutely inflexible necessity; but since he is a thinking creature, he
can choose between either blindly submitting to the spur with which
necessity pricks him on from outside, or else adapting himself to the
inner representation of it that he forms in his own mind; and it is in
this that the contrast between servitude and liberty lies.

…

For all the rest can be imposed from outside by force, including bodily
movements, but nothing in the world can compel a man to exercise his
powers of thought, nor take away from him the control over his own
mind.” – Simone Weil ”Oppression and Liberty”