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.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
We are like horses who hurt themselves as soon as they pull on their bits - and we bow our heads. We even lose consciousness of the situation, we just submit. Any re-awakening of thought is then painful.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
quote by Simone Weil
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
