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Intellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation.

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
Thing
Degrees
Never
Subject
Owed
Intellectual
Adherence
Subjects
Voluntary
Alone
Whatsoever
Attention
Obligation
Form
Degree
Anything
Forms

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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.
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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.
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Uprooting is by far the most dangerous of the ills of human society, for it perpetuates itself.
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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.
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Creation is an act of love and it is perpetual.
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The world needs saints who have genius, just as a plague-stricken town needs doctors.
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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.
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It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.
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Love consents to all and commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication.
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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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Renunciation is submission to time.
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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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Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
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Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence.
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The essential thing to know about God is that God is Good. All the rest is secondary.
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Truth is one, but error is manifold.
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A mind enclosed in language is in prison.
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The beauty of the world is Christ's tender smile for us coming through matter.
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To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.
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