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We possess nothing in the world — a mere chance can strip us of everything — except the power to say 'I'.
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Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty.
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Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.
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Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.
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Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism.
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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.
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Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.
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Affliction hardens and discourages us because, like a red hot iron, it stamps the soul to its very depths with the scorn, the disgust, and even the self-hatred and sense of guilt that crime logically should produce but actually does not.
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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 colour, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever.
There is no legitimate limit to the satisfaction of the needs of a human being except as imposed by necessity and by the needs of other human beings. The limit is only legitimate if the needs of all human beings receive an equal degree of attention.
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The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.
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At the very least, a mind enclosed in language is in prison.
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We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.
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Our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities.
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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.
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At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
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In a general way, the literature of the twentieth century is essentially psychological; and psychology consists of describing states of the soul by displaying them all on the same plane, without any discrimination of value, as though good and evil were external to them, as though the effort toward the good could be absent at any moment from the thought of any man.
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Meditation on the chance which led to the meeting of my mother and father is even more salutary than meditation on death.
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The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.
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Conscience is deceived by the social. Our supplementary energy (imaginative) is to a great extent taken up with the social. It has to be detached from it. That is the most difficult of detachments.
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When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.
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The struggle between the opponents and defenders of capitalism is a struggle between innovators who do not know what innovation to make and conservatives who do not know what to conserve.
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It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.
Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.
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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.
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What hope is there for innocence if it is not recognized?
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The human soul has need of disciplined participation in a common task of public value, and it has need of personal initiative within this participation.
The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.
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Quote of the day
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
George Santayana
Simone Weil
Creative Commons
Born:
February 3, 1909
Died:
August 24, 1943
(aged 34)
Bio:
Simone Weil was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and political activist.
Known for:
Gravity and Grace
The Need for Roots
Simone Weil: An Anthology
Waiting on God
Notebooks of Simone Weil
Most used words:
human
god
man
soul
love
power
attention
evil
thought
life
truth
real
reality
social
order
Simone Weil on Wikipedia
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André Weil
French Mathematician
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American Philosopher
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