Quote

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

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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
Always
Claims
Quantity
Flavor
Notion
Background
Arguments
Argument
Legal
Adopted
Rights
Essentially
Measured
Upon
Laughed
Exchange
Force
Backgrounds
Linked
Evocative
Else
Rely
Commercial
Asserted
Must
Tone
Sharing
Contention

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If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.
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The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation.
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School children and students who love God should never say: For my part I like mathematics I like French I like Greek. They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.
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To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
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Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction.
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We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.
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Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love andjustice.
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Christians ought to suspect that affliction is the very essence of creation. To be a created thing is not necessarily to be afflicted, but it is necessarily to be exposed to affliction. ... Affliction is the surest sign that God wishes to be loved by us it is the most precious evidence of His tenderness.
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Only an indirect method is effective. We do nothing if we have not first drawn back.
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Necessity is God's veil.
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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'.
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When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.
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