Quote

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.

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
Christian
Necessarily
Suspect
Wish
Essence
Suspects
Thing
Created
Tenderness
Evidence
Wishes
Creation
Exposed
Ought
Precious
Afflicted
Loved
Christians
Surest
Suffering
Sign
Affliction

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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.
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The recognition of human wretchedness is difficult for whoever is rich and powerful because he is almost invincibly led to believe that he is something. It is equally difficult for the man in miserable circumstances because he is almost invincibly led to believe that the rich and powerful man is something.
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Man alone can enslave man.
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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.
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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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You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.
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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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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.
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Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.
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The demonstrable correlation of opposites is an image of the transcendental correlation of contradictories.
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One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering.
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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.
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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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There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear then one can think that the stars enter into one's soul.
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As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
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A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams.
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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.
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An imaginary perfection is automatically at the same level as I who imagine it neither higher nor lower.
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The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the 'chosen people'.
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Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.
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