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
light needs bread
Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.
space grace void
Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.
christian essence suffering
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.
sympathy thinking compassion
The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it.
prayer heart soul
prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.
simple roots effort
Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.
spiritual men class
When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
love atheist atheism
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
reality attachment want
Attachment is a manufacturer of illusion and whoever wants reality ought to be detached.
power ends understood
Power ... is the supreme end for all those who have not understood.
nature sky roots
It is only from the light which streams constantly from heaven that a tree can derive the energy to strike its roots deep into the soil. The tree is in fact rooted in the sky.
people revolution opium
It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.
lost-everything periods lost
You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.
faith lying soul
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.