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.

Simone Weil

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Simone Weil's quotes

Simone Weil

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The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.

Simone Weil

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.

Simone Weil

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.

Simone Weil

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

Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.

Simone Weil

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.

Simone Weil

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.

Simone Weil

To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.

Simone Weil

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

Simone Weil

Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

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

Simone Weil

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

Simone Weil

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

Nothing is less instructive than a machine.

Simone Weil

A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.

Simone Weil

Humility is attentive patience.

Simone Weil

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.

Simone Weil

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

Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

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

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

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

Simone Weil

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.

Simone Weil

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.

Simone Weil

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.

Simone Weil

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

When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.

Simone Weil

Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.

Simone Weil

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

Simone Weil

I can, therefore I am.

Simone Weil

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.

Simone Weil

The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.

Simone Weil

We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.

Simone Weil

We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.

Simone Weil

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

Simone Weil

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

Simone Weil