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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
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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
Order
Two
World
Conquest
Sorts
Greatness
Lying
Spiritual
True
More quotes by Simone Weil
To us, men of the West, a very strange thing happened at the turn of the century without noticing it, we lost science, or at least the thing that had been called by that name for the last four centuries. What we now have in place of it is something different, radically different, and we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is.
Simone Weil
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.
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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.
Simone Weil
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Simone Weil
Algebra and money are essentially levelers the first intellectually, the second effectively.
Simone Weil
Death. An instantaneous state, without past or future. Indispensable for entering eternity.
Simone Weil
The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.
Simone Weil
We should do only those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing.
Simone Weil
A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again
Simone Weil
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.
Simone Weil
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Simone Weil
Evil is neither suffering nor sin it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
Simone Weil
Punishment is a vital need of the human soul.
Simone Weil
The contradictions the mind comes up against, these are the only realities, the criterion of the real. There is no contradiction in what is imaginary. Contradiction is the test of necessity.
Simone Weil
Attachment is a manufacturer of illusion and whoever wants reality ought to be detached.
Simone Weil
Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.
Simone Weil
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
Simone Weil
The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.
Simone Weil
Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.
Simone Weil
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
Simone Weil