Quotes by Simone Weil

“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 vo...”

“Affliction compels us to recognize as real what we do not think possible.”

“At the very best, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which in...”

“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.”

“Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).”

“There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.”

“We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.”

“A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not.”

“He who has not God in himself cannot feel His absence.”

“When I think of the Crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.”

“Belief in immortality is harmful because it is not in our power to conceive of the soul as really incorporeal. So this belief is in fact a belief in the prolongation of life, and it robs death of i...”

“Men owe us what they imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.”

“In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish. ”

“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.”

“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 appren...”

“Education -- whether its object be children or adults, individuals or an entire people, or even oneself -- consists in creating motives. To show what is beneficial, what is obligatory, what is good...”

“To love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and that which we love.”

“Herein is a capital truth. It is not the natural capacity, the congenital gift, nor is it the effort, the will, the work, which in the intelligence as sway over the energy capable of making it full...”

“Love is not consolation. It is light.”

“It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us, but has revealed our true level.”