Simone Weil Quotes

Quotes about:

• Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

  Simone Weil

  Kindness, Caring, Generosity

  Letter to Joë Bousquet on April 13, 1942. "Correspondance", published by Editions l'Age d'Homme in Lausanne, p. 18, 1982.

  173 Copy quote

• Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

  Simone Weil

  Pain, Hands, Suffering

  145 Copy quote

• We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

  Simone Weil

  Christian, Religious, Adversity

  155 Copy quote

• Just as the power of the sun is the only force in the natural universe that causes a plant to grow against gravity, so the grace of God is the only force in the spiritual universe that causes a person to grow against the gravity of their own ego.

  Simone Weil

  Spiritual, Humility, Acceptance

  118 Copy quote

• Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.

  Simone Weil

  Sin, Humans, Wretchedness

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.122, Psychology Press

  4 Copy quote

• There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

  Simone Weil

  Beauty, Heart, Two

  123 Copy quote

• 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

  Crush, Sides, Oppression

  Simone Weil (1978). “Lectures on Philosophy”, p.139, Cambridge University Press

  118 Copy quote

• The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, "What are you going through?

  Simone Weil

  Love, Inspirational, Friendship

  Simone Weil (1973). “Waiting for God”

  67 Copy quote

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

  Simone Weil

  Soul, Important, Needs

  Simone Weil (2003). “The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind”, p.43, Routledge

  43 Copy quote

• Love: To feel with one's whole self the existence of another being.

  Simone Weil

  Love You, Self, Existence

  Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.9, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  26 Copy quote

• Whenever one tries to suppress doubt , there is tyranny .

  Simone Weil

  Doubt, Trying, Tyranny

  Simone Weil (1978). “Lectures on Philosophy”, p.103, Cambridge University Press

  35 Copy quote

• Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.

  Simone Weil

  Brother, Betrayal, Military

  75 Copy quote

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

  Simone Weil

  Pride, Intelligent, Men

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

  46 Copy quote

• Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

  Simone Weil

  Prayer, Attention

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.117, Psychology Press

  28 Copy quote

• Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.

  Simone Weil

  Beautiful, Eternity, Mark

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

  35 Copy quote

• The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.

  Simone Weil

  Spiritual, Reality, Aggravation

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.129, Psychology Press

  11 Copy quote

• Official history is a matter of believing murderers on their own word.

  Simone Weil

  Believe, History, Matter

  54 Copy quote

• Compassion directed toward oneself is true humility.

  Simone Weil

  Humility, Compassion, Oneself

  13 Copy quote

• God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves.

  Simone Weil

  Reason, Should, God's Love

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.62, Psychology Press

  20 Copy quote

• Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

  Simone Weil

  Happiness, Real, Evil

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.70, Psychology Press

  30 Copy quote

• Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.

  Simone Weil

  Emptiness, Sin

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.22, Psychology Press

  30 Copy quote

• Love is not consolation, it is light.

  Simone Weil

  Love, Life, Light

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

  28 Copy quote

• Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.

  Simone Weil

  Silence, Cry, Indifferent

  52 Copy quote

• What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.

  Simone Weil

  Country, Peace, War

  "The Power of Words" (1937)

  60 Copy quote

• The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race, or color, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever.

  Simone Weil

  Race, Color, Needs

  "Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation" (1943)

  76 Copy quote

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