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

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
Power
Everything
Nothing
World
Strip
Possess
Mere
Except
Chance

More quotes by Simone Weil

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Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just.
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The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it.
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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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Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end.
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The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics.
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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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The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
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Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
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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.
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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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To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.
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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 doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
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Punishment is a vital need of the human soul.
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Only an indirect method is effective. We do nothing if we have not first drawn back.
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Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
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Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
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Creation is an act of love and it is perpetual.
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Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
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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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