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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
Contradiction
Necessity
Test
Tests
Criterion
Comes
Contradictions
Reality
Criteria
Real
Realities
Mind
Imaginary
More quotes by Simone Weil
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
The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.
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The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.
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Renunciation is submission to time.
Simone Weil
We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.
Simone Weil
Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.
Simone Weil
The same suffering is much harder to bear for a high motive than for a base one. The people [during World War II] who stood motionless, from one to eight in the morning, for the sake of having an egg, would have found it very difficult to do in order to save a human life.
Simone Weil
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded upon the spirituality of work.
Simone Weil
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
I only read what I am hungry for at the moment when I have an appetite for it, and then I do not read, I eat.
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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
It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down.
Simone Weil
...nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude for he is a thinking creature.
Simone Weil
Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.
Simone Weil
Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.
Simone Weil
The beauty of the world is Christ's tender smile for us coming through matter.
Simone Weil
Time's violence rends the soul, by the rent eternity enters.
Simone Weil
The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.
Simone Weil
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
The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds.
Simone Weil
