Quote

There are only two sorts of greatness: true greatness, which is of a spiritual order, and the old, old lie of world conquest. Conquest is an ersatz greatness.

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
Spiritual
True
Order
Two
World
Conquest
Sorts
Greatness
Lying

More quotes by Simone Weil

Image
Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.
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
Image
one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.
Simone Weil
Image
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
Simone Weil
Image
If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire.
Simone Weil
Image
Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this incomparable agony, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.
Simone Weil
Image
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.
Simone Weil
Image
Meditation on the chance which led to the meeting of my mother and father is even more salutary than meditation on death.
Simone Weil
Image
Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.
Simone Weil
Image
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Simone Weil
Image
A society like the Church, which claims to be Divine is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains then on account of the evil which sullies it. Something of the social labelled divine: an intoxicating mixture which carries with it every sort of license. Devil disguised.
Simone Weil
Image
I am not a Catholic but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
Simone Weil
Image
Whenever one tries to suppress doubt , there is tyranny .
Simone Weil
Image
What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.
Simone Weil
Image
The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.
Simone Weil
Image
If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.
Simone Weil
Image
Just as the power of the sun is the only force in the natural universe that causes a plant to grow against gravity, so the grace of God is the only force in the spiritual universe that causes a person to grow against the gravity of their own ego.
Simone Weil
Image
When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen and peasants have this fine expression: It is the trade entering his body. Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves quite truly that it is the universe, the order and beauty of the world, and the obedience of God that are entering our body.
Simone Weil
Image
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.
Simone Weil
Image
If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.
Simone Weil