Quote

We possess nothing in the world - a mere chance can strip us of everything - except the power to say 'I.

Simone Weil

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Everything
Nothing
World
Strip
Possess
Mere
Except
Chance
Power

More quotes by Simone Weil

Image
If someone does me injury I must desire that this injury shall not degrade me. I must desire this out of love for him who inflicts it, in order that he may not really have done evil.
Simone Weil
Image
All those who possess in its pure state the love of their neighbour and the acceptance of the order of the world, inclucing affliction-all those, even should they live and die to all appearances atheists, are surely saved.
Simone Weil
Image
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
Image
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.
Simone Weil
Image
Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.
Simone Weil
Image
We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.
Simone Weil
Image
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.
Simone Weil
Image
The essential thing to know about God is that God is Good. All the rest is secondary.
Simone Weil
Image
We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.
Simone Weil
Image
We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.
Simone Weil
Image
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
Image
A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.
Simone Weil
Image
In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie.
Simone Weil
Image
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.
Simone Weil
Image
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
Image
If you say to someone who has ears to hear: What you are doing to me is not just, you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words like, I have the right... or you have no right to... They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention.
Simone Weil
Image
Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one nor the other is likable. The Great Beast is always repulsive
Simone Weil
Image
Punishment is a vital need of the human soul.
Simone Weil
Image
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
Image
The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone Weil