Simone Weil Quotes

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. - Simone Weil

There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies. - Simone Weil

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice. - Simone Weil

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too. - Simone Weil

There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul. - Simone Weil

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit. - Simone Weil

The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth. - Simone Weil

The proper method of philosophy consists in clearly conceiving the insoluble problems in all their insolubility and then in simply contemplating them, fixedly and tirelessly, year after year, without any hope, patiently waiting. - 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

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