Simone Weil Quotes - Page 4

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• There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.

  Simone Weil

  Wisdom, Justice, Modern

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.31, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  80 Copy quote

• Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.

  Simone Weil

  Stars, Giving, Tree

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.108, Psychology Press

  62 Copy quote

• When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.

  Simone Weil

  Lying, Insomnia, Doors

  9 Copy quote

• The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.

  Simone Weil

  Lying, Greatness, Suffering

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.81, Psychology Press

  13 Copy quote

• It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God.
  He only has to refuse his ultimate love to everything that is not God.
  This refusal does not presuppose any belief.
  It is enough to recognize what is obvious to any mind:
  that all the goods of this world, past, present, and future, real or imaginary,
  are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying
  the desire that perpetually burns within us
  for an infinite and perfect good.

  Simone Weil

  Real, Believe, Past

  4 Copy quote

• Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right through to the soul. . . . When the feeling for beauty happens to be associated with the sight of some human being, the transference of love is made possible, at any rate in an illusory manner. But it is all the beauty of the world, it is universal beauty, for which we yearn.

  Simone Weil

  Beauty, Love Is, Sight

  30 Copy quote

• Necessity is God's veil.

  Simone Weil

  Veils

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.104, Psychology Press

  7 Copy quote

• The great error of nearly all studies of war, an error into which all socialists have fallen, has been to consider war as an episode in foreign politics when it is especially an act of internal politics and the most atrocious act of all . . . Since the directing apparatus has no other way of fighting the enemy than by sending its own soldiers, under compulsion, to their death-the war of one state against another state resolves itself into a war of the state and the military apparatus against its own people.

  Simone Weil

  Military, War, Fighting

  73 Copy quote

• All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.

  Simone Weil

  Tragedy, Return, Imagine

  Simone Weil (1978). “Lectures on Philosophy”, p.197, Cambridge University Press

  5 Copy quote

• The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence - that is beautiful.

  Simone Weil

  Beautiful, Fall, Tree

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.108, Psychology Press

  60 Copy quote

• There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear; then one can think that the stars enter into one's soul.

  Simone Weil

  Stars, Night, Thinking

  9 Copy quote

• We do injury to a child if we bring it up in a narrow Christianity, which prevents it from ever becoming capable of perceiving that there are treasures of purest gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Laical education does an even greater injury to children. It covers up those treasures, and those of Christianity as well.

  Simone Weil

  Christian, Children, Civilization

  Simone Weil (2003). “The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind”, p.91, Routledge

  27 Copy quote

• Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

  Simone Weil

  Responsibility, Self, Self Responsibility

  21 Copy quote

• Never react to an evil in such a way as to augment it.

  Simone Weil

  Evil, Way

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.5, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  17 Copy quote

• The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.

  Simone Weil

  Moving, Cutting, Suffering

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.28, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  71 Copy quote

• Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

  Simone Weil

  Danger, Trembling, Existence

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.13, Psychology Press

  37 Copy quote

• To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God.

  Simone Weil

  Faith In God, Injustice, Victim

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.144, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  32 Copy quote

• A man thinks he is dying for his country," said Anatole France, "but he is dying for a few industrialists." But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.

  Simone Weil

  Country, Thinking, Men

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

  45 Copy quote

• Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life.

  Simone Weil

  Modern Life, Action, Life Is

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.153, Psychology Press

  5 Copy quote

• A mind enclosed in language is in prison.

  Simone Weil

  Mind, Language, Prison

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.26, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  14 Copy quote

• It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me.

  Simone Weil

  Thinking, Self

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.4, Routledge

  10 Copy quote

• It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms.

  Simone Weil

  Fall, Thinking, Doe

  Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.15, Routledge

  11 Copy quote

• To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).

  Simone Weil

  Solitude, Wish, Virtue

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.67, Psychology Press

  9 Copy quote

• I can, therefore I am.

  Simone Weil

  Inspirational, Motivational, Encouraging

  21 Copy quote

• To us, men of the West, a very strange thing happened at the turn of the century; without noticing it, we lost science, or at least the thing that had been called by that name for the last four centuries. What we now have in place of it is something different, radically different, and we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is.

  Simone Weil

  Science, Men, Names

  7 Copy quote

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