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Simone Weil Quotes - Page 15

All Quotes Acceptance Art Atheism Atheist Beauty Belief Bureaucracy Certainty Children Christ Church Compassion Contemplation Country Creation Crime Desire Doubt Duty Education Effort Eternity Evil Fighting Friendship Giving God Grace Greatness Greek Happiness Heart Heaven Hell Humanity Humility Hurt Idolatry Imagination Imitation Inspirational Intelligence Joy Justice Language Learning Life Literature Love Lying Mathematics Morality Obedience Oppression Pain Past Peace Personality Power Prayer Prestige Purity Purpose Reality Science Silence Sin Solitude Soul Spirituality Struggle Study Suffering Teaching Time Today Truth Tyranny Universe Values Violence Virtue Waiting War

War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production.

War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production.

War, Preparation, Important

Simone Weil (2013). “Oppression and Liberty”, p.16, Routledge

The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.

Real, Independence, Sin

Simone Weil (2003). “The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind”, p.115, Routledge

A well ordered society would be one where the State only had a negative action, comparable to that of a rudder: a light pressure at the right moment to counteract the first suggestion of any loss of equilibrium.

Loss, Light, Suggestions

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.172, Psychology Press

I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.

Book, Moments, Hungry

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

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.

Real, History, Imagination

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

The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.

Rely Upon, Rights, Tone

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

Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false?

Book, Reality, Sound

Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.343, Wipf and Stock Publishers

The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.

Doors, World, Way

Simone Weil (1952). “Gravity and Grace”, p.200, U of Nebraska Press

We must wish either for that which actually exists or for that which cannot in any way exist or, still better, for both. That which is and that which cannot be are both outside the realm of becoming.

Wish, Way, Becoming

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.175, Psychology Press

An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower.

Perfection, Levels, Imagine

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.99, Psychology Press

The same suffering is much harder to bear for a high motive than for a base one. The people [during World War II] who stood motionless, from one to eight in the morning, for the sake of having an egg, would have found it very difficult to do in order to save a human life.

Morning, War, Eight

To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.

Stress, Writing, Biographies

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

Intelligent, Intelligence, Roles

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.130, Psychology Press

Conformity is an imitation of grace.

Grace, Conformity, Imitation

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.167, Psychology Press

Nothing is less instructive than a machine.

Machines

Simone Weil (2009). “Formative Writings (Routledge Revivals)”, p.140, Routledge

Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.

Art, Art Is, Collectives

Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.151, Psychology Press

Meditation on the chance which led to the meeting of my mother and father is even more salutary than meditation on death.

Mother, Father, Meditation

"Chance (1947)". "Gravity and Grace". Book by Simone Weil, p. 277, 1947.

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

War, Self, Ready

Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.159, Wipf and Stock Publishers

The development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.

Education, Real, Attention

Simone Weil (2009). “Waiting on God (Routledge Revivals)”, p.32, Routledge

one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.

Caves

Simone Weil (2015). “First and Last Notebooks: Supernatural Knowledge”, p.36, Wipf and Stock Publishers

Algebra and money are essentially levelers; the first intellectually, the second effectively.

Money, Math, Firsts

Simone Weil (1952). “Gravity and Grace”, p.209, U of Nebraska Press

Intellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation.

Intellectual, Degrees, Attention

Simone Weil (2014). “Letter to a Priest”, p.38, Routledge

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.

Hurt, Horse, Pain

Simone Weil (2009). “Formative Writings (Routledge Revivals)”, p.124, Routledge

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.

Art, Wine, Ought

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