Quote

One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale.

Simone Weil

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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
Sake
Neither
Happiness
Doe
Without
Bach
Play
Scale
Done
Scales
Life
Merely

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prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.
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The only great spirit of our time.
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The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.
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A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
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one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.
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Whenever one tries to suppress doubt , there is tyranny .
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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.
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The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
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There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
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You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.
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Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.
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When a man's life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body, which is due to other men's actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him.
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Time's violence rends the soul, by the rent eternity enters.
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We should do only those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing.
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The notion of rights is linked with the notion of sharing out, of exchange, of measured quantity. It has a commercial flavor, essentially evocative of legal claims and arguments. Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at.
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Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right through to the soul. . . . When the feeling for beauty happens to be associated with the sight of some human being, the transference of love is made possible, at any rate in an illusory manner. But it is all the beauty of the world, it is universal beauty, for which we yearn.
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The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
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the instruments of power - arms, gold, machines, magical or technical secrets - always exist independently of him who disposes of them, and can be taken up by others. Consequently all power is unstable.
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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.
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The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it.
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