Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and political activist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth3 February 1909
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
sin humans wretchedness
Sin is nothing else but the failure to recognize human wretchedness.
data limits mathematics
Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don't happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data and yet we don't understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.
belief divine certainty
In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God.
evil suffering together
Evil is neither suffering nor sin; it is both at the same time, it is something common to them both. For they are linked together; sin makes us suffer and suffering makes us evil, and this indissoluble complex of suffering and sin is the evil in which we are submerged against our will, and to our horror.
tyrants doors morality
To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.
encouragement punishment killers
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.
roots rooted
Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn't uproot others.
pain lying hatred
There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
science past discovery
science has now been for a long time - and to an ever-increasing extent - a collective enterprise. Actually, new results are always, in fact, the work of specific individuals; but, save perhaps for rare exceptions, the value of any result depends on such a complex set of interrelations with past discoveries and possible future researches that even the mind of the inventor cannot embrace the whole.
rights
A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.
taken power secret
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.
reality joy
Joy is being fully aware of reality ...
winning justice sides
One must always be ready to change sides with justice, that fugitive from the winning camp.
evil excellence literature
When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.