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
kindness generosity empathy
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
heart two affliction
There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.
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.
country war giving
When war is waged, it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it.
beauty love-is sight
Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right through to the soul. . . . When the feeling for beauty happens to be associated with the sight of some human being, the transference of love is made possible, at any rate in an illusory manner. But it is all the beauty of the world, it is universal beauty, for which we yearn.
money men want
If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.
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.
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.
danger trembling existence
Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.
prayer attention
Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.
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.
soul important needs
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
suffering chance hunger
It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
imagine christ easier
It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified.