Words matter. These are the best Simone Weil Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.
Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.
Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.
A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.
One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.
To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
I can, therefore I am.
Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.
Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.
Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.
There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul.
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.
A mind enclosed in language is in prison.
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.
To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
Humility is attentive patience.
Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.
Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.
Humility is attentive patience.
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
I can, therefore I am.
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.
Culture is an instrument wielded by teachers to manufacture teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still more teachers.
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.
Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.
Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat.
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.
A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
The only way into truth is through one’s own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.
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