Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad , the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality. Simone Weil More Quotes by Simone Weil More Quotes From Simone Weil To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue). Simone Weil virtue solitude wish To claim that theft or adultery or lying are "evil" simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity. Simone Weil evil lying ideas We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us. Simone Weil crosses steps heaven We have to endure the discordance between imagination and fact. It is better to say, “I am suffering,” than to say, “This landscape is ugly. Simone Weil ugly imagination suffering What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war. Simone Weil war peace country True definition of science: the study of the beauty of the world. Simone Weil definitions study world The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either Simone Weil power men country If we forgive God for his crime against us, which is to have made us finite creatures, He will forgive our crime against him, which is that we are finite creatures. Simone Weil crime forgiving god Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace. Simone Weil equality beauty men A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody in it is constantly harassed and kept on edge by the interference of extraneous wills while the soul is left in cold desolate misery. What man needs is silence and warmth; what he is given is an icy pandemonium. Physical labor may be painful, but it is not degrading as such. It is not art; it is not science; it is something else, possessing an exactly equal value with art and science, for it provides an equal opportunity to reach the impersonal stage of attention. Simone Weil opportunity men art We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. Simone Weil faults trying attention We are like plants which have the one choice of being in or out of the light. Simone Weil plant light choices With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed. Simone Weil sorrow taken teamwork It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people. Simone Weil opium revolution people It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me. Simone Weil self thinking Expectant waiting is the foundation of the spiritual life. Simone Weil spiritual expectations waiting He who has not God in himself cannot feel His absence. Simone Weil absence feels Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does. Simone Weil charity humans doe Love consents to all and commands only those who consent. Love is abdication. God is abdication. Simone Weil abdication command love-is One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale. Simone Weil play happiness life
