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the instruments of power - arms, gold, machines, magical or technical secrets - always exist independently of him who disposes of them, and can be taken up by others. Consequently all power is unstable.
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
Secret
Technical
Taken
Magical
Others
Secrets
Power
Instruments
Always
Machines
Disposes
Gold
Independently
Exist
Unstable
Arms
Consequently
More quotes by Simone Weil
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
Simone Weil
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
Simone Weil
If a young girl is being forced into a brothel she will not talk about her rights. In such a situation the word would sound ludicrously inadequate.
Simone Weil
Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought.
Simone Weil
An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower.
Simone Weil
When a man's life is destroyed or damaged by some wound or privation of soul or body, which is due to other men's actions or negligence, it is not only his sensibility that suffers but also his aspiration toward the good. Therefore there has been sacrilege towards that which is sacred in him.
Simone Weil
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.
Simone Weil
Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain distance, without coming any nearer, the very being who is as necessary to him as food.
Simone Weil
Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Simone Weil
Stars and blossoming fruit-trees: utter permanence and extreme fragility give an equal sense of eternity.
Simone Weil
Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.
Simone Weil
The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.
Simone Weil
More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
Simone Weil
The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill.
Simone Weil
Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude.
Simone Weil
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.
Simone Weil
The development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.
Simone Weil
The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.
Simone Weil
Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.
Simone Weil
The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.
Simone Weil