Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and political activist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth3 February 1909
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
loss light suggestions
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.
art opportunity men
A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium. Physical labor may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention.
love-is radiance pure-love
Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty.
teaching should-have training
The authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act. All the other advantages of instruction are without interest.
firsts indirect method
Only an indirect method is effective. We do nothing if we have not first drawn back.
effort salvation easiness
There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult to us than all our efforts.
creation acts-of-love perpetual
Creation is an act of love and it is perpetual.
real paradise hell
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
action should righteous
We should do only those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing ...
atheist acceptance order
All those who possess in its pure state the love of their neighbour and the acceptance of the order of the world, inclucing affliction-all those, even should they live and die to all appearances atheists, are surely saved.
beauty essence looks
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.
loan exception values
Everything without exception which is of value in me comes from somewhere other than myself, not as a gift but as a loan which must be ceaselessly renewed.
desire treasure misers
The miser deprives himself of his treasure because of his desire for it.
civilization bureaucracy specialization
The whole of our civilization is founded on specialization, which implies the enslavement of those who execute to those who coordinate ...