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
military war fighting
The great error of nearly all studies of war, an error into which all socialists have fallen, has been to consider war as an episode in foreign politics when it is especially an act of internal politics and the most atrocious act of all . . . Since the directing apparatus has no other way of fighting the enemy than by sending its own soldiers, under compulsion, to their death-the war of one state against another state resolves itself into a war of the state and the military apparatus against its own people.
thinking
It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me.
equality degrees needs
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
pain hands suffering
Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.
faith-in-god injustice victim
To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God.
opportunity civilization groups
Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.
race idols people
The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the 'chosen people'.
grace wish trouble
We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.
faith atheist atheism
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. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
heart two affliction
There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.
doubt trying tyranny
Whenever one tries to suppress doubt , there is tyranny .
kindness generosity empathy
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
fire challenges
Fire destroys that which feeds it.