Simone Weil Quotes - Page 10

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• The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.

  Simone Weil

  Philosophy, Science, Years

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.335, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.

  Simone Weil

  Evil, Boredom, Soul

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.226, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• 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.

  Simone Weil

  Reality, Men, Thinking

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• If a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate.

  Simone Weil

  Girl, Rights, Sound

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.21, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation.

  Simone Weil

  Compassion, Hungry, Contemplation

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• Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain distance, without coming any nearer, the very being who is as necessary to him as food.

  Simone Weil

  Friendship, Distance, Views

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.78, Routledge

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• A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium. Physical labor may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention.

  Simone Weil

  Art, Men, Opportunity

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.17, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I think that it is useless to fight directly against natural weaknesses. One has to force oneself to act as though one did not have them in circumstances where a duty makes it imperative; and in the ordinary course of life one has to know these weaknesses, prudently take them into account, and strive to turn them to good purpose; for they are all capable of being put to some good purpose.

  Simone Weil

  Happiness, Fighting, Thinking

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.5, Routledge

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• 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.

  Simone Weil

  Ideas, Fragility, Stories

  "Three Letters on History: Thophile de Viau" (written 1938 - 1939)

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• We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.

  Simone Weil

  God, Long, Heaven

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.73, Routledge

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• Truth is one, but error is manifold.

  Simone Weil

  Truth, Errors, Truth Is

  Simone Weil (2003). “The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind”, p.66, Routledge

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• [We are not] to take one step, even in the direction of what is good, beyond that to which we are irresistibly impelled by God, and this applies to action, word, and thought.

  Simone Weil

  Steps, Action, Spirituality

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• He who does not realize to what extent shifting fortune and necessity hold in subjection every human spirit, cannot regard as fellow-creatures nor love as he loves himself those whom chance separated from him by an abyss. The variety of constraints pressing upon man give rise to the illusion of several distinct species that cannot communicate. Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.

  Simone Weil

  Life, Men, Giving

  Simone Weil (2005). “War and the Iliad”, New York Review of Books

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• Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just.

  Simone Weil

  Punishment, Soul, Suffering

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.226, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change. There must be absolutely acceptance of the possibility that everything material in us should be destroyed. But we must simultaneously accept and repudiate the possibility that the supernatural part of the soul should disappear.

  Simone Weil

  Humility, Acceptance, Knowing

  "Concerning the Our Father". "Waiting on God". Book by Simone Weil, Routledge & Kegan Paul edition, p. 153, 1972.

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• One could count on one's fingers the number of scientists throughout the world with a general idea of the history and development of their particular science: there is none who is really competent as regards sciences other than his own. As science forms an indivisible whole, one may say that there are no longer, strictly speaking, scientists, but only drudges doing scientific work.

  Simone Weil

  Science, Ideas, Numbers

  Simone Weil (2013). “Oppression and Liberty”, p.12, Routledge

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• 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.

  Simone Weil

  Past, Europe, Civilization

  Simone Weil (1962). “Selected Essays: 1934-1943”, London, Oxford U.P

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• Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.

  Simone Weil

  Christian, Children, Inspiration

  "Prelude to Politics (1943)". "The Simone Weil Reader". Book edited by George A. Panichas, p. 220, 1957.

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• How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?

  Simone Weil

  Self Confidence, People, Doubt

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• A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.

  Simone Weil

  Science, Doe, Worthless

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.56, Psychology Press

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• 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.

  Simone Weil

  Loyalty, Spring, Law

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.127, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.

  Simone Weil

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.14, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Christians ought to suspect that affliction is the very essence of creation. To be a created thing is not necessarily to be afflicted, but it is necessarily to be exposed to affliction. ... Affliction is the surest sign that God wishes to be loved by us; it is the most precious evidence of His tenderness.

  Simone Weil

  Christian, Essence, Suffering

  Simone Weil (1998). “Simone Weil”

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• Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this incomparable agony, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.

  Simone Weil

  Distance, Love Is, Agony

  Simone Weil (1977). “The Simone Weil Reader”

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• When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.

  Simone Weil

  Evil, Excellence, Literature

  Simone Weil (1977). “The Simone Weil Reader”

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