Simone Weil

The world is God's language to us.

— Simone Weil

“Physical labour is a daily death”

— Simone Weil

Necessity is God's veil.

— Simone Weil

Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

— Simone Weil

Conformity is an imitation of grace.

— Simone Weil

Nothing is less instructive than a machine.

— Simone Weil

Distance is the soul of beauty.

— Simone Weil

I can, therefore I am.

— Simone Weil

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

— Simone Weil

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

— Simone Weil

“If the error is thrust deeply enough into the soul, man cannot but succumb to it.”

— Simone Weil

Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.

— Simone Weil

Power ... is the supreme end for all those who have not understood.

— Simone Weil

In this world we live in a mixture of time and eternity. Hell would be pure time.

— Simone Weil

There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult to us than all our efforts.

— Simone Weil

one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.

— Simone Weil

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.

— Simone Weil

The simultaneous existence of opposite virtues in the soul like pincers to catch hold of God.

— Simone Weil

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new,…

— Simone Weil

It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of…

— Simone Weil

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion…

— Simone Weil

I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.

— Simone Weil

There are only two sorts of greatness: true greatness, which is of a spiritual order, and the old, old lie of world…

— Simone Weil

It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves.

— Simone Weil

Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due…

— Simone Weil

It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does…

— Simone Weil

The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual…

— Simone Weil

Rome is the Great Beast of atheism and materialism, adoring nothing but itself. Israel is the Great Beast of religion. Neither one…

— Simone Weil

Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God…

— Simone Weil

The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly.…

— Simone Weil

With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him;…

— Simone Weil

“If there is a real desire, if the thing desired is really light, the desire for light produces it. There is a…

— Simone Weil

“We are drawn towards a thing, either because there is some good we are seeking from it, or because we cannot do…

— Simone Weil

“I had never read any of the mystics, because I have never felt called to read them. In reading, as in other…

— Simone Weil

The great error of nearly all studies of war, an error into which all socialists have fallen, has been to consider war…

— Simone Weil

In relation to God, we are like a thief who has burgled the house of a kindly householder and been allowed to…

— Simone Weil

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something…

— Simone Weil

Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It…

— Simone Weil

Every time that a man has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, the Tao, etc., the Son of God…

— Simone Weil

It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God. He only has to refuse his ultimate love to…

— Simone Weil