Simone Weil Quotes

Most popular Simone Weil Quotes

All sins are attempts to fill voids. - Simone Weil quote.
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
— Simone Weil Gravity and Grace

sin

To be a hero, one must give an order to oneself. - Simone Weil quote.
To be a hero, one must give an order to oneself.
— Simone Weil The Notebooks of Simone Weil

heroism

Beauty always promises, but never gives anything. - Simone Weil quote.
Beauty always promises, but never gives anything.
— Simone Weil Selected Essays

beauty

The future is made of the same stuff as the present. - Simone Weil quote.
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
— Simone Weil

future

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. - Simone Weil quote.
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
— Simone Weil Simone Weil: A Life

Attention

At the very least, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. - Simone Weil quote.
At the very least, a mind enclosed in language is in prison.
— Simone Weil La Table Ronde

language

Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge. - Simone Weil quote.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
— Simone Weil New York Notebook

pain

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life. - Simone Weil quote.
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.
— Simone Weil

imagination fiction

Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art, or life. - Simone Weil quote.
Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art, or life.
— Simone Weil
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. - Simone Weil quote.
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.
— Simone Weil Gravity and Grace

evil

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. - Simone Weil quote.
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
— Simone Weil The Need for Roots
A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves. - Simone Weil quote.
A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
— Simone Weil

cruelty

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached. - Simone Weil quote.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
— Simone Weil

reality detachment

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. - Simone Weil quote.
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.

reading

Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. - Simone Weil quote.
Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive.
— Simone Weil The Need for Roots

money

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell. - Simone Weil quote.
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
— Simone Weil

intelligence

The intelligent man who is proud of that intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell. - Simone Weil quote.
The intelligent man who is proud of that intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
— Simone Weil Simone Weil: A Life

intelligence

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. - Simone Weil quote.
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
— Simone Weil Waiting on God

Attention unhappiness

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: "What are you going through?" - Simone Weil quote.
The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: "What are you going through?"

compassion

A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it. - Simone Weil quote.
A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it.
— Simone Weil Gravity and Grace

art

Religion is a form of nourishment.  It is difficult to appreciate the flavor and food-value of something one has never eaten. - Simone Weil quote.
Religion is a form of nourishment.  It is difficult to appreciate the flavor and food-value of something one has never eaten.

religion

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. - Simone Weil quote.
Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself.
— Simone Weil The Greek Source

misfortune

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 quote.
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.

vice

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more and less pronounced according to the play of circumstances. - Simone Weil quote.
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more and less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
— Simone Weil Nouveaux Cahiers

barbarian

We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up. - Simone Weil quote.
We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.

heaven

Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought. - Simone Weil quote.
Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought.
— Simone Weil Selected Essays, 1934–1943

science