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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

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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
Real
Realities
Mind
Imaginary
Contradiction
Necessity
Test
Tests
Criterion
Comes
Contradictions
Reality
Criteria

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Man alone can enslave man.
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Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.
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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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A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.
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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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Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.
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For when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.
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The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.
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The Our Father contains all possible petitions we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it. It is to prayer what Christ is to humanity.
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The need of truth is more sacred than any other need.
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As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
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The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting.
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It is human misery and not pleasure which contains the secret of the divine wisdom.
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Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.
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Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image.
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Compassion directed to oneself is humility.
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It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
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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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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.
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The essential characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century is the growing weakness, and almost the disappearance, of the idea of value.
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