Simone Weil - Quodid

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Picture of Simone Weil

Simone Adolphine Weil (; French: [simɔn adɔlfin vɛj]; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, political activist and labourer. Despite her short life, her ideas concerning religion, spirituality and politics have remained widely influential in contemporary philosophy.

Quotes from Simone Weil

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.

attention patience

The absence of the dead . . . is their way of appearing.

The true definition of science is this: the study of the beauty of the world.

beauty science world study

Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

war politics patriotism harm humiliation

All sins are attempts to fill voids.

sin desire need emptiness

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.

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

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

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

soul home rootedness

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

If we forgive God for his crime against us, which is to have made us finite creatures, he will forgive our crime against him, which is that we are finite creatures.

Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus — the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, . . . but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.

democracy bureaucracy

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