Simone Weil Quotes - Page 11

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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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• Attachment is a manufacturer of illusion and whoever wants reality ought to be detached.

  Simone Weil

  Reality, Attachment, Want

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.14, Psychology Press

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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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• Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy.

  Simone Weil

  Energy, Degradation, Rewards

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.8, Psychology Press

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• Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

  Simone Weil

  Thinking, Crucifixion Of Christ, Envy

  Waiting on God Letter 4 (1950)

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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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• 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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• The authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act. All the other advantages of instruction are without interest.

  Simone Weil

  Teaching, Should Have, Training

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.120, Psychology Press

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• The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.

  Simone Weil

  Spiritual, Block, Real

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.189, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.

  Simone Weil

  Evil, Suffering, Together

  Simone Weil (1998). “Simone Weil”

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• One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love - to serve the loved one without his knowing it - is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.

  Simone Weil

  Life, Knowing, Atheism

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.84, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance ... has seeped down into the lowest publications. ... Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature's spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.

  Simone Weil

  Girl, Spiritual, Eye

  "On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God". Book by Simone Weil. Translated by R. Rees, "Morality and literature," p. 164, 1968.

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• There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.

  Simone Weil

  Pain, Lying, Hatred

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• Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad , the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.

  Simone Weil

  People, Personality, Architecture

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.13, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• The Our Father contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity.

  Simone Weil

  Prayer, Father, Humanity

  "The Simone Weil Reader".

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• The word 'revolution' is a word for which you kill, for which you die, for which you send the labouring masses to their deaths; but which does not contain any content.

  Simone Weil

  Doe, Revolution, Mass

  Simone Weil (2013). “Oppression and Liberty”, p.53, Routledge

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• It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at.

  Simone Weil

  Beauty, Essence, Vices

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.61, Routledge

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• If it were conceivable that in obeying God one should bring about one's own damnation whilst in disobeying him one could be saved, I should still choose the way of obedience.

  Simone Weil

  Damnation, Obeying God, Way

  Simone Weil (1979). “Waiting on God”, Routledge

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• To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.

  Simone Weil

  Friendship, Art, Joy

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.43, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.

  Simone Weil

  Humility, Rights, Talking

  Simone Weil (2014). “Letter to a Priest”, p.73, Routledge

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• When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality, they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years. But above this level, far above, separated by an abyss, is the level where the highest things are achieved. These things are essentially anonymous.

  Simone Weil

  Art, Philosophy, Science

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.13, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

  Simone Weil

  Beauty, Trying, Looks

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.150, Psychology Press

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• It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.

  Simone Weil

  Men, Order, Victory

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.139, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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