Quote

Academic work is one of those fields which contain a pearl so precious that it is worth while to sell all our possessions, keeping nothing for ourselves, in order to be able to acquire it.

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
Able
Keeping
Nothing
Sell
Pearl
Work
Sells
Possessions
Possession
Pearls
Fields
Contain
Worth
Academic
Education
Acquire
Order
Precious

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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.
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To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
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The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.
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prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.
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The entire universe is nothing but a great metaphor.
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Man alone can enslave man.
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Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.
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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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In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
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Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.
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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.
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We are like plants which have the one choice of being in or out of the light.
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Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.
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A mind enclosed in language is in prison.
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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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Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.
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We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
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We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.
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Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.
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