The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry , the only ersatz of God , the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself. Simone Weil More Quotes by Simone Weil More Quotes From Simone Weil Purity is the power to contemplate defilement. Simone Weil contemplating purity power The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth. Simone Weil block real spiritual Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false? Simone Weil sound book reality 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. Simone Weil taken power secret We possess nothing in the world - a mere chance can strip us of everything - except the power to say 'I. Simone Weil mere chance world 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. Simone Weil discovery science past Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence. Simone Weil god-love doe thinking Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just. Simone Weil punishment soul suffering In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie. Simone Weil truth lying people When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality, they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years. But above this level, far above, separated by an abyss, is the level where the highest things are achieved. These things are essentially anonymous. Simone Weil philosophy science art All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. 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. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass. Simone Weil filling-up space law The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade. Simone Weil real teaching running The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded upon the spirituality of work. Simone Weil greatness civilization lying To us, men of the West, a very strange thing happened at the turn of the century; without noticing it, we lost science, or at least the thing that had been called by that name for the last four centuries. What we now have in place of it is something different, radically different, and we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is. Simone Weil names men science We should do only those righteous actions which we cannot stop ourselves from doing. Simone Weil righteous should action Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it. Simone Weil trying beauty looks Intellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation. Simone Weil degrees intellectual attention If we concentrate our attention on trying to solve a problem of geometry, and if at the end of an hour we are no nearer to doing so than at the beginning, we have nevertheless been making progress each minute of that hour in another more mysterious dimension. Without knowing or feeling it, this apparent barren affort has brought more light into the soul. Simone Weil light knowing soul The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State. Simone Weil independence sin real In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God. Simone Weil certainty divine belief
