--- title: "21 Simone Weil Quotes by 19 authors" description: "Browse 21 Simone Weil quotes by 19 authors. Discover the best Simone Weil sayings and thoughts." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg" --- > [“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. -Simone Weil”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/louisa-thomsen-brits/attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form-of-generosity-simone-weil/) [Louisa Thomsen Brits](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/louisa-thomsen-brits/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg) > [“Lo que caracteriza a un hombre superior es superar la cultura que ha recibido." Simone Weil. Carta a Jacques Lafitte”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/simone-weil/lo-que-caracteriza-a-un-hombre-superior-es-superar-la-cultura-que-ha/) [Simone Weil](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/simone-weil/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/27c/simone-weil-544_amor_lo-que-caracteriza-a-un-hombre-superior_3179918.jpg) > [“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mar-preston/imaginary-evil-is-romantic-and-varied-real-evil-is-gloomy-monotonous-2/) [Mar Preston](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mar-preston/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3ca/mar-preston-33415_evil_imaginary-evil-is-romantic-and-varied-re_3065144.jpg) > [“When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ann-mcelhinney/when-once-a-certain-class-of-people-has-been-placed-by-the-temporal-2/) [Ann McElhinney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ann-mcelhinney/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d16/ann-mcelhinney-31894_murder_when-once-a-certain-class-of-people-has_754788.jpg) > [What Simone Weil said politics has meant all along, which means that you fight for 11 percent, 12 percent, 13 percent, that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/robert-hass/what-simone-weil-said-politics-has-meant-all-along-which-means-that/) [Robert Hass](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/robert-hass/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ae3/robert-hass-3548_age_what-simone-weil-said-politics-has-meant_1441359.png) > [I didn't find this memoir of these two eccentric people so different from doing my memoirs of De Sade or Simone Weil.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/francine-du-plessix-gray/i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-eccentric-people-so-different/) [Francine du Plessix Gray](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/francine-du-plessix-gray/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef1/francine-du-plessix-gray-19971_different_i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-e_2508285.png) > [... Simone Weil is a mystery that should keep us all humble, and I need it more than most. Also she's the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/flannery-o-connor/simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-keep-us-all-humble-and-i-need-it/) [Flannery O'Connor](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/flannery-o-connor/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/476/flannery-o-connor-639_able_simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-kee_3089792.png) > [ “the essence of sin is not \[primarily\] the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/timothy-j-keller/the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the-violation-of-laws-but-a/) [Timothy J. Keller](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/timothy-j-keller/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a0c/timothy-j-keller-3733_relationship-with-go_the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the_1694853.jpg) > [A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows "This is I." An ugly woman knows with equal certainty,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seeing-herself-in-the-mirror-knows/) [Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anonymous/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a6e/anonymous-1_beautiful_a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seein_904579.jpg) > [I have used the word "attention," which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving gaze…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/iris-murdoch/i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-borrow-from-simone-weil-to/) [Iris Murdoch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/iris-murdoch/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/858/iris-murdoch-993_active_i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-b_49777.png) > [“Simone Weil was absolutely right- beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts. Because this is so…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-eldredge/simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty-and-affliction-are-the-only/) [John Eldredge](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-eldredge/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef4/john-eldredge-1487_affliction_simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty_2868119.png) > [“When one goes on to find "better", or "higher", or "truer", or "more enduring", or "more widely agreed upon" forms of beauty,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elaine-scarry/when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-higher-or-truer-or-more-enduring/) [Elaine Scarry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/elaine-scarry/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77d/elaine-scarry-28115_beauty_when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-highe_248092.jpg) > [“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/maggie-nelson/i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this-there-was-a-time-when-i/) [Maggie Nelson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/maggie-nelson/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/51e/maggie-nelson-4294_blue_i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this_58210.jpg) > [“When the hammer strikes a nail, the extreme force of the blow on the broad head is transmitted without loss to the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-oppen/when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extreme-force-of-the-blow-on-the/) [George Oppen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-oppen/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/862/george-oppen-28841_human-heart_when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extre_2864746.png) > [ \[Simone Weil's\] life is almost a perfect blend of the Comic and the Terrible, which two things may be opposite sides of… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/flannery-o-connor/simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-blend-of-the-comic-and-the/) [Flannery O'Connor](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/flannery-o-connor/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b7c/flannery-o-connor-639_coins_simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-b_165781.png) > [“We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/iris-murdoch/we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred-concept-of-sincerity-to-the/) [Iris Murdoch](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/iris-murdoch/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/25e/iris-murdoch-993_character_we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred_2235004.jpg) > [“Libraries are sanctuaries from the world and command centers onto it: here in the quiet rooms are the lives of Crazy Horse…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world-and-command-centers-onto-it/) [Rebecca Solnit](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rebecca-solnit/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/442/rebecca-solnit-569_another-world_libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world_2519446.jpg) > [One of the great weaknesses of the progressive, as distinct from the religious, mind, is that it has no awareness of truth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/malcolm-muggeridge/one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progressive-as-distinct-from-the/) [Malcolm Muggeridge](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/malcolm-muggeridge/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e1e/malcolm-muggeridge-2370_awareness_one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progr_1788566.jpg) > [“I was trying to discover examples of a living restoration, trying to go beyond discussions about correct historic colors, materials, and techniques.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/howard-mansfield/i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-living-restoration-trying-to/) [Howard Mansfield](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/howard-mansfield/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d51/howard-mansfield-57797_green_i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-l_2391088.jpg) > [“I hope I have now made it clear why I thought it best, in speaking of the dissonances between fiction and reality…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/frank-kermode/i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-thought-it-best-in-speaking-of/) [Frank Kermode](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/frank-kermode/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a5f/frank-kermode-16485_books_i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-th_1047290.jpg) > [“It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/richard-rohr/it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin-to-get-to-the-second-gaze-by/) [Richard Rohr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/richard-rohr/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/richard-rohr-618_coming-together_it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin_3027223.jpg) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/simone-weil/#itemlist", "name": "Simone Weil Quotes", "numberOfItems": 21, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. -Simone Weil”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Louisa Thomsen Brits" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/louisa-thomsen-brits/attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form-of-generosity-simone-weil/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. -Simone Weil” — Louisa Thomsen Brits", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Lo que caracteriza a un hombre superior es superar la cultura que ha recibido.\" Simone Weil. 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My parents in their own way are as odd as Sade.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Francine du Plessix Gray" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/francine-du-plessix-gray/i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-eccentric-people-so-different/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef1/francine-du-plessix-gray-19971_different_i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-e_2508285.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef1/francine-du-plessix-gray-19971_different_i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-e_2508285.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef1/francine-du-plessix-gray-19971_different_i-didn-t-find-this-memoir-of-these-two-e_2508285.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I didn't find this memoir of these two eccentric people so different from doing my memoirs of De Sade or…” — Francine du Plessix Gray", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 7, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "... Simone Weil is a mystery that should keep us all humble, and I need it more than most. Also she's the example of the religious consciousness without a religion which maybe sooner or later I will be able to write about.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Flannery O'Connor" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/flannery-o-connor/simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-keep-us-all-humble-and-i-need-it/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/476/flannery-o-connor-639_able_simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-kee_3089792.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/476/flannery-o-connor-639_able_simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-kee_3089792.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/476/flannery-o-connor-639_able_simone-weil-is-a-mystery-that-should-kee_3089792.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“... Simone Weil is a mystery that should keep us all humble, and I need it more than most. Also she's the…” — Flannery O'Connor", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 8, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“the essence of sin is not [primarily] the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one another, and the whole created order. “All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote Simone Weil.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Timothy J. Keller" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/timothy-j-keller/the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the-violation-of-laws-but-a/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a0c/timothy-j-keller-3733_relationship-with-go_the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the_1694853.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a0c/timothy-j-keller-3733_relationship-with-go_the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the_1694853.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a0c/timothy-j-keller-3733_relationship-with-go_the-essence-of-sin-is-not-primarily-the_1694853.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“the essence of sin is not [primarily] the violation of laws but a wrecked relationship with God, one…” — Timothy J. Keller", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 9, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows \"This is I.\" An ugly woman knows with equal certainty, \"This is not I.\" Maud knew this neat division represented an over-simplification. The doll-mask she saw had nothing to do with her, nothing.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anonymous" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anonymous/a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seeing-herself-in-the-mirror-knows/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a6e/anonymous-1_beautiful_a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seein_904579.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a6e/anonymous-1_beautiful_a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seein_904579.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a6e/anonymous-1_beautiful_a-beautiful-woman-simone-weil-said-seein_904579.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows \"This is I.\" An ugly woman knows…” — Anonymous", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 10, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I have used the word \"attention,\" which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon individual reality. I believe this to be the characteristic and proper mark of the active moral agent.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Iris Murdoch" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/iris-murdoch/i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-borrow-from-simone-weil-to/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/858/iris-murdoch-993_active_i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-b_49777.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/858/iris-murdoch-993_active_i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-b_49777.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/858/iris-murdoch-993_active_i-have-used-the-word-attention-which-i-b_49777.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I have used the word \"attention,\" which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving…” — Iris Murdoch", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 11, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Simone Weil was absolutely right- beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts. Because this is so true, we must have a measure of beauty in our lives proportionate to our affliction. No more. Much more. Is this not God's prescription for us? Just take a look around.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "John Eldredge" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-eldredge/simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty-and-affliction-are-the-only/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef4/john-eldredge-1487_affliction_simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty_2868119.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef4/john-eldredge-1487_affliction_simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty_2868119.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ef4/john-eldredge-1487_affliction_simone-weil-was-absolutely-right-beauty_2868119.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Simone Weil was absolutely right- beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts…” — John Eldredge", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 12, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“When one goes on to find \"better\", or \"higher\", or \"truer\", or \"more enduring\", or \"more widely agreed upon\" forms of beauty, what happens to our regard for the less good, less high, less true, less universal instances? Simone Weil says, \"He who has gone farther, to the very beauty of the world itself, does not love them any less but much more deeply than before\".”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Elaine Scarry" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elaine-scarry/when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-higher-or-truer-or-more-enduring/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77d/elaine-scarry-28115_beauty_when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-highe_248092.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77d/elaine-scarry-28115_beauty_when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-highe_248092.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77d/elaine-scarry-28115_beauty_when-one-goes-on-to-find-better-or-highe_248092.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“When one goes on to find \"better\", or \"higher\", or \"truer\", or \"more enduring\", or \"more widely agreed upon\"…” — Elaine Scarry", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 13, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world. But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. 'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.' All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Maggie Nelson" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/maggie-nelson/i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this-there-was-a-time-when-i/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/51e/maggie-nelson-4294_blue_i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this_58210.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/51e/maggie-nelson-4294_blue_i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this_58210.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/51e/maggie-nelson-4294_blue_i-want-you-to-know-if-you-ever-read-this_58210.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than…” — Maggie Nelson", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 14, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“When the hammer strikes a nail, the extreme force of the blow on the broad head is transmitted without loss to the point. The head of the nail is the whole of eternity and the point of that nail is pressed to the center of the human heart. \" [ quoting Simone Weil from memory ]”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "George Oppen" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-oppen/when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extreme-force-of-the-blow-on-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/862/george-oppen-28841_human-heart_when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extre_2864746.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/862/george-oppen-28841_human-heart_when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extre_2864746.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/862/george-oppen-28841_human-heart_when-the-hammer-strikes-a-nail-the-extre_2864746.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“When the hammer strikes a nail, the extreme force of the blow on the broad head is transmitted without loss…” — George Oppen", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 15, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "[Simone Weil's] life is almost a perfect blend of the Comic and the Terrible, which two things may be opposite sides of the same coin. In my own experience, everything funny I have written is more terrible than it is funny, or only funny because it is terrible, or only terrible because it is funny.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Flannery O'Connor" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/flannery-o-connor/simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-blend-of-the-comic-and-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b7c/flannery-o-connor-639_coins_simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-b_165781.png", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b7c/flannery-o-connor-639_coins_simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-b_165781.png", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b7c/flannery-o-connor-639_coins_simone-weil-s-life-is-almost-a-perfect-b_165781.png", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“[Simone Weil's] life is almost a perfect blend of the Comic and the Terrible, which two things may be…” — Flannery O'Connor", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 16, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy. Our current picture of freedom encourages a dream-like facility; whereas what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Simone Weil said that morality was a matter of attention not of will. We need a new vocabulary of attention.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Iris Murdoch" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/iris-murdoch/we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred-concept-of-sincerity-to-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/25e/iris-murdoch-993_character_we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred_2235004.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/25e/iris-murdoch-993_character_we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred_2235004.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/25e/iris-murdoch-993_character_we-need-to-return-from-the-self-centred_2235004.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are…” — Iris Murdoch", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 17, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Libraries are sanctuaries from the world and command centers onto it: here in the quiet rooms are the lives of Crazy Horse and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Hundred Years' War and the Opium Wars and the Dirty War, the ideas of Simone Weil and Lao-Tzu, information on building your sailboat or dissolving your marriage, fictional worlds and books to equip the reader to reenter the real world. They are, ideally, places where nothing happens and where everything that has happened is stored up to be remembered and relived, the place where the world is folded up into boxes of paper. Every book is a door that opens onto another world, which might be the magic that all those children's books were alluding to, and a library is a Milky Way of worlds.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rebecca Solnit" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rebecca-solnit/libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world-and-command-centers-onto-it/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/442/rebecca-solnit-569_another-world_libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world_2519446.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/442/rebecca-solnit-569_another-world_libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world_2519446.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/442/rebecca-solnit-569_another-world_libraries-are-sanctuaries-from-the-world_2519446.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Libraries are sanctuaries from the world and command centers onto it: here in the quiet rooms are the lives…” — Rebecca Solnit", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 18, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "One of the great weaknesses of the progressive, as distinct from the religious, mind, is that it has no awareness of truth as such; only of truth in terms of enlightened expediency. The contrast is well exemplified in two exact contemporaries - Simone Weil and Simone de Beauvoir; both highly intelligent and earnestly disposed. In all the fearful moral dilemmas of our time, Simone Weil never once went astray, whereas Simone de Beauvoir, with I am sure the best of intentions, has found herself aligned with apologists for some of the most monstrous barbarities and falsehoods of history.", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Malcolm Muggeridge" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/malcolm-muggeridge/one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progressive-as-distinct-from-the/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e1e/malcolm-muggeridge-2370_awareness_one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progr_1788566.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e1e/malcolm-muggeridge-2370_awareness_one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progr_1788566.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e1e/malcolm-muggeridge-2370_awareness_one-of-the-great-weaknesses-of-the-progr_1788566.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“One of the great weaknesses of the progressive, as distinct from the religious, mind, is that it has no…” — Malcolm Muggeridge", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 19, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I was trying to discover examples of a living restoration, trying to go beyond discussions about correct historic colors, materials, and techniques. I looked to the past for guidance, to find the graces we need to save. I want to be an importer. This is not nostalgia; I am not nostalgic. I am not looking for a way back. \"From where will a renewal come to us, to us who have devastated the whole earthly globe?\" asked Simone Weil. \"Only from the past if we love it.\" What I am looking for is the trick of having the same ax twice, for a restoration that renews the spirit, for work that transforms the worker. We may talk of saving antique linens, species, or languages; but whatever we are intent on saving, when a restoration succeeds, we rescue ourselves. -- Howard Mansfield, The Same Ax Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Howard Mansfield" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/howard-mansfield/i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-living-restoration-trying-to/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d51/howard-mansfield-57797_green_i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-l_2391088.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d51/howard-mansfield-57797_green_i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-l_2391088.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d51/howard-mansfield-57797_green_i-was-trying-to-discover-examples-of-a-l_2391088.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I was trying to discover examples of a living restoration, trying to go beyond discussions about correct…” — Howard Mansfield", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 20, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“I hope I have now made it clear why I thought it best, in speaking of the dissonances between fiction and reality in our own time, to concentrate on Sartre. His hesitations, retractations, inconsistencies, all proceed from his consciousness of the problems: how do novelistic differ from existential fictions? How far is it inevitable that a novel give a novel-shaped account of the world? How can one control, and how make profitable, the dissonances between that account and the account given by the mind working independently of the novel? For Sartre it was ultimately, like most or all problems, one of freedom. For Miss Murdoch it is a problem of love, the power by which we apprehend the opacity of persons to the degree that we will not limit them by forcing them into selfish patterns. Both of them are talking, when they speak of freedom and love, about the imagination. The imagination, we recall, is a form-giving power, an esemplastic power; it may require, to use Simone Weil's words, to be preceded by a 'decreative' act, but it is certainly a maker of orders and concords. We apply it to all forces which satisfy the variety of human needs that are met by apparently gratuitous forms. These forms console; if they mitigate our existential anguish it is because we weakly collaborate with them, as we collaborate with language in order to communicate. Whether or no we are predisposed towards acceptance of them, we learn them as we learn a language. On one view they are 'the heroic children whom time breeds / Against the first idea,' but on another they destroy by falsehood the heroic anguish of our present loneliness. If they appear in shapes preposterously false we will reject them; but they change with us, and every act of reading or writing a novel is a tacit acceptance of them. If they ruin our innocence, we have to remember that the innocent eye sees nothing. If they make us guilty, they enable us, in a manner nothing else can duplicate, to submit, as we must, the show of things to the desires of the mind. I shall end by saying a little more about La Nausée, the book I chose because, although it is a novel, it reflects a philosophy it must, in so far as it possesses novel form, belie. Under one aspect it is what Philip Thody calls 'an extensive illustration' of the world's contingency and the absurdity of the human situation. Mr. Thody adds that it is the novelist's task to 'overcome contingency'; so that if the illustration were too extensive the novel would be a bad one. Sartre himself provides a more inclusive formula when he says that 'the final aim of art is to reclaim the world by revealing it as it is, but as if it had its source in human liberty.' This statement does two things. First, it links the fictions of art with those of living and choosing. Secondly, it means that the humanizing of the world's contingency cannot be achieved without a representation of that contingency. This representation must be such that it induces the proper sense of horror at the utter difference, the utter shapelessness, and the utter inhumanity of what must be humanized. And it has to occur simultaneously with the as if, the act of form, of humanization, which assuages the horror. This recognition, that form must not regress into myth, and that contingency must be formalized, makes La Nausée something of a model of the conflicts in the modern theory of the novel. How to do justice to a chaotic, viscously contingent reality, and yet redeem it? How to justify the fictive beginnings, crises, ends; the atavism of character, which we cannot prevent from growing, in Yeats's figure, like ash on a burning stick? The novel will end; a full close may be avoided, but there will be a close: a fake fullstop, an 'exhaustion of aspects,' as Ford calls it, an ironic return to the origin, as in Finnegans Wake and Comment c'est. Perhaps the book will end by saying that it has provided the clues for another, in which contingency will be defeated, ...”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Frank Kermode" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/frank-kermode/i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-thought-it-best-in-speaking-of/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a5f/frank-kermode-16485_books_i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-th_1047290.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a5f/frank-kermode-16485_books_i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-th_1047290.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/a5f/frank-kermode-16485_books_i-hope-i-have-now-made-it-clear-why-i-th_1047290.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“I hope I have now made it clear why I thought it best, in speaking of the dissonances between fiction and…” — Frank Kermode", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 21, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, as you might expect. Yet I cannot have one without the other, it seems. I cannot risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers. I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!). God offers us, instead, the grace to “weep” over our sins more than to ever perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness. (St. Thérèse of Lisieux brought this Gospel message home in our time.) The spiritual journey is a kind of weeping and a kind of wandering that keeps us both askew and thus awake at the same time. Thérèse called it her “little way.” So now in my later life, contemplation and compassion are finally coming together. This is my second gaze. It is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It sees itself, the other, and even God with God’s own eyes, which are always eyes of compassion. It is from this place that true action must spring. Otherwise, most of our action is merely re-action, and does not bear fruit or “fruit that will last” (John 15:16). It is all about me at that point, so I must hold out for the second gaze when it becomes all about God, about the suffering of our world, and is filled with compassion for all of it. Some high-level mystics, notably the Jewesses, Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum, actually “felt sorry” for God. Most Catholic mystics just want to actively join God in suffering for the world (Colossians 1:24). The gaze of compassion, looking out at life from the place of Divine Intimacy, is really all I have, and all I have to give back to God and back to the world.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Richard Rohr" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/richard-rohr/it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin-to-get-to-the-second-gaze-by/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/richard-rohr-618_coming-together_it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin_3027223.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/richard-rohr-618_coming-together_it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin_3027223.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4cb/richard-rohr-618_coming-together_it-has-taken-me-much-of-my-life-to-begin_3027223.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a…” — Richard Rohr", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/simone-weil/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/simone-weil/", "name": "Simone Weil Quotes", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/simone-weil/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/716/louisa-thomsen-brits-4007_attention_attention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form_1697703.jpg" }, "description": "Browse 21 Simone Weil quotes by 19 authors. 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