Simone Weil Quotes

346 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

Simone Weil
One cannot imagine St Francis of Assisi talking about rights.

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

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

Simone Weil
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
There is no area in our minds reserved for superstition, such as the Greeks had in their mythology; and superstition, under cover of an abstract vocabulary, has revenged itself by invading the entire realm of thought.

Simone Weil
The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.

Simone Weil
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring, real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. "Imaginative literature," therefore, is either boring or immoral or a mixture of both.

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

Simone Weil
If we go down into ourselves we find that we possess exactly what we desire.

Simone Weil
Science is today regarded by some as a mere catalogue of technical recipes, and others as a body of pure intellectual speculations which are sufficient unto themselves; the former set too little value on the intellect, the latter on the world.

Simone Weil
What is surprising is not that oppression should make its appearance only after higher forms of economy have been reached, but that it should always accompany them.

Simone Weil
God is rich in mercy. I know this wealth of his with the certainty of experience, I have touched it.

Simone Weil
Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.

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

Simone Weil
The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.

Simone Weil