Simone Weil quotes - page 9

Human history is simply the history of the servitude which makes men - oppressed and oppressors alike - the plaything of the instruments of domination they themselves have manufactured, and thus reduces living humanity to being the chattel of inanimate chattels. (Simone Weil)
Humility consists of knowing that in this world the whole soul, not only what we term the ego in its totality, but also the supernatural part of the soul, which is God present in it, is subject to time and to the vicissitudes of change. View quote
Simone Weil
No combination of circumstances ever cancels this obligation. If there are circumstances which seem to cancel it as regards a certain man or category of men, they impose it in fact all the more imperatively. View quote
Simone Weil
Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. View quote
Simone Weil
In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. View quote
Simone Weil
The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty. View quote
Simone Weil
What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. View quote
Simone Weil
The needs of the soul can for the most part be listed in pairs of opposites which balance and complete one another. View quote
Simone Weil
Atheism and incredulity constitute an equivalent of such a purification. View quote
Simone Weil
If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. View quote
Simone Weil
To anyone who does actually consent to directing his attention and love beyond the world, towards the reality that exists outside the reach of all human faculties, it is given to succeed in doing so. In that case, sooner or later, there descends upon him a part of the good, which shines through him upon all that surrounds him. (Simone Weil)
Any State whose whole official doctrine constitutes an incitement to this crime is itself wholly criminal. It can retain no trace of legitimacy. View quote
Simone Weil
At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being. View quote
Simone Weil
If anyone possesses this faculty, then his attention is in reality directed beyond the world, whether he is aware of it or not. View quote
Simone Weil
The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through. Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. ... Every separation is a link. View quote
Simone Weil
Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. View quote
Simone Weil
But a war of any scope will give rise to others as formidable. View quote
Simone Weil
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. View quote
Simone Weil
From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path would be short and direct, if one cared to take it. View quote
Simone Weil
Any government whose members commit this crime, or authorize it in their subordinates, has betrayed its function. View quote
Simone Weil
In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills. (Simone Weil)
It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism. View quote
Simone Weil
What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist. View quote
Simone Weil
Wrongly or rightly you think that I have a right to the name of Christian. View quote
Simone Weil
It is not only in literature that fiction generates immorality. It does it also in life itself. For the substance of our life is almost exclusively composed of fiction. View quote
Simone Weil