Quote

We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.

Simone Weil

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Simone Weil
Age: 34 †
Born: 1909
Born: February 3
Died: 1943
Died: August 24
Autobiographer
Diarist
French Resistance Fighter
Philosopher
Poet
Teacher
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
Paris
France
Simone Adolphine Weil
Situation
Painful
Pain
Horse
Thought
Soon
Bows
Even
Lose
Horses
Like
Consciousness
Submit
Loses
Awakening
Bits
Heads
Hurt
Pull

More quotes by Simone Weil

Image
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
Simone Weil
Image
The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.
Simone Weil
Image
Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.
Simone Weil
Image
When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.
Simone Weil
Image
The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics.
Simone Weil
Image
The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds.
Simone Weil
Image
There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Simone Weil
Image
Death. An instantaneous state, without past or future. Indispensable for entering eternity.
Simone Weil
Image
Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.
Simone Weil
Image
Science is voiceless it is the scientists who talk.
Simone Weil
Image
Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.
Simone Weil
Image
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
Simone Weil
Image
The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.
Simone Weil
Image
...nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude for he is a thinking creature.
Simone Weil
Image
Academic work is one of those fields which contain a pearl so precious that it is worth while to sell all our possessions, keeping nothing for ourselves, in order to be able to acquire it.
Simone Weil
Image
Compassion directed to oneself is humility.
Simone Weil
Image
Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life.
Simone Weil
Image
We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.
Simone Weil
Image
A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.
Simone Weil
Image
A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.
Simone Weil