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
evil politics duty
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.
wisdom justice modern
There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.
color race needs
The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race, or color, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever.
wish faults made
It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.
country men thinking
A man thinks he is dying for his country," said Anatole France, "but he is dying for a few industrialists." But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.
spiritual humility grace
Just as the power of the sun is the only force in the natural universe that causes a plant to grow against gravity, so the grace of God is the only force in the spiritual universe that causes a person to grow against the gravity of their own ego.
kindness optimistic mean-people
A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.
country peace war
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
military war fighting
The great error of nearly all studies of war, an error into which all socialists have fallen, has been to consider war as an episode in foreign politics when it is especially an act of internal politics and the most atrocious act of all . . . Since the directing apparatus has no other way of fighting the enemy than by sending its own soldiers, under compulsion, to their death-the war of one state against another state resolves itself into a war of the state and the military apparatus against its own people.
thinking
It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me.
equality degrees needs
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
pain hands suffering
Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.
faith-in-god injustice victim
To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God.
opportunity civilization groups
Just as a person who is always asserting that he is too good-natured is the very one from whom to expect, on some occasion, the coldest and most unconcerned cruelty, so when any group sees itself as the bearer of civilization this very belief will betray it into behaving barbarously at the first opportunity.