Top 400 Simone Weil Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Capitalism has brought about the emancipation of collective humanity with respect to nature. But this collective humanity has itself taken on with respect to the individual the oppressive function formerly exercised by nature.”

— Simone Weil

152. “It is only by entering the transcendental, the supernatural, the authentically spiritual order that man rises above the social. Until then, whatever he may do, the social is transcendent in relation to him.”

— Simone Weil

153. “The social order, though necessary, is essentially evil, whatever it may be.”

— Simone Weil

154. “It is incontestable that the void which we grasp with the pincers of contradiction is from on high, for we grasp it the better the more we sharpen our natural faculties of intelligence, will and love. The void which is from below is that into which we fall when we allow our natural faculties to become atrophied.”

— Simone Weil

155. “Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking. This leprosy is killing us; it is doubtful whether it can be cured without first starting with the abolition of all political parties.”

— Simone Weil

156. “Official history is a matter of believing murderers on their own word.”

— Simone Weil

157. “The payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.”

— Simone Weil

158. “Uprooting is by far the most dangerous of the ills of human society, for it perpetuates itself.”

— Simone Weil

159. “Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.”

— Simone Weil

160. “One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love – to serve the loved one without his knowing it – is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.”

— Simone Weil

161. “The world is God’s language to us.”

— Simone Weil

162. “Religion is a form of nourishment. It is difficult to appreciate the flavor and food-value of something one has never eaten.”

— Simone Weil

163. “A popular Spanish song says in words of marvelous truth: “If anyone wants to make himself invisible, there is no surer way than to become poor.” Love sees what is invisible.”

— Simone Weil

164. “Purity is the ability to contemplate defilement.”

— Simone Weil

165. “The miser deprives himself of his treasure because of his desire for it.”

— Simone Weil

166. “If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.”

— Simone Weil

167. “To be innocent is to bear the weight of the entire universe. It is to throw away the counterweight.”

— Simone Weil

168. “Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.”

— Simone Weil

169. “Everything without exception which is of value in me comes from somewhere other than myself, not as a gift but as a loan which must be ceaselessly renewed.”

— Simone Weil

170. “It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.”

— Simone Weil

171. “As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.”

— Simone Weil

172. “If someone does me injury I must desire that this injury shall not degrade me. I must desire this out of love for him who inflicts it, in order that he may not really have done evil.”

— Simone Weil

173. “The speed with which bureaucracy has invaded almost every branch of human activity is something astounding once one thinks about it.”

— Simone Weil

174. “Academic work is one of those fields which contain a pearl so precious that it is worth while to sell all our possessions, keeping nothing for ourselves, in order to be able to acquire it.”

— Simone Weil

175. “To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.”

— Simone Weil

176. “A mind enclosed in language is in prison.”

— Simone Weil

177. “It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at.”

— Simone Weil

178. “The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation.”

— Simone Weil

179. “One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering.”

— Simone Weil

180. “We are like plants that have the one choice of being in or out of the light.”

— Simone Weil

181. “Time’s violence rends the soul, by the rent eternity enters.”

— Simone Weil

182. “Of two men who have no experience of God, he who denies him is perhaps nearer to him than the other.”

— Simone Weil

183. “Creation is an act of love and it is perpetual.”

— Simone Weil

184. “There is nothing that comes closer to true humility than the intelligence. It is impossible to feel pride in one’s intelligence at the moment when one really and truly exercises it.”

— Simone Weil

185. “War, which perpetuates itself under the form of preparation for war, has once and for all given the State an important role in production.”

— Simone Weil

186. “The entire universe is nothing but a great metaphor.”

— Simone Weil

187. “We pretend that our present system is democratic, yet the people never have the chance nor the means to express their views on any problem of public life. Any issue that does not pertain to particular interests is abandoned to collective passions, which are systematically and officially inflamed.”

— Simone Weil

188. “The work of art which I do not make, none other will ever make.”

— Simone Weil

189. “We cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.”

— Simone Weil

190. “The Our Father is to prayer what Christ is to humanity.”

— Simone Weil

191. “Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat.”

— Simone Weil

192. “The apprehension of necessity is an imitation of creation.”

— Simone Weil

193. “Creative attention means really giving our attention to what does not exist.”

— Simone Weil

194. “It is much easier to imagine ourselves in the place of God the Creator than in the place of Christ crucified.”

— Simone Weil

195. “A well ordered society would be one where the State only had a negative action, comparable to that of a rudder: a light pressure at the right moment to counteract the first suggestion of any loss of equilibrium.”

— Simone Weil

196. “We should desire neither the immortality nor the death of any human being, whoever he may be, with whom we have to do.”

— Simone Weil

197. “You could not have wished to be born at a better time than this, when everything is lost.”

— Simone Weil

198. “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.”

— Simone Weil

199. “Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence.”

— Simone Weil

200. “Religion as a source of consolation is an obstacle to true faith.”

— Simone Weil