Quotes from Simone Weil

The void which is from below is that into which we fall when we allow our natural faculties to become atrophied.

Documents originate among the powerful ones, the conquerors. History, therefore, is nothing but a compilation of the depositions made by assassins with respect to their victims and themselves.

A amizade não se procura, não se imagina, não se deseja; exercita-se (é uma virtude)

When pain and weariness reach the point of causing a sense of perpetuity to be born in the soul, through contemplating this perpetuity with acceptance and love, we are snatched away into eternity.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling. — Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace . (Routledge; 1 edition, November 14, 2002) Originally published 1947.

El virtuosismo en todo arte consiste en la capacidad de salirse de sí mismo

A man whose whole family died under torture, and who had himself been tortured for a long time in a concentration camp. Or a 16th century Indian, the sole survivor after the total extermination of his people. Such men if they had previously believed in God would either believe it no more, or else they would conceive of it quite differently than before.

It is the thought of the possible favor of God and of his mercy that makes me tremble with a sort of fear. On the other hand the sense of being like a barren fig tree for Christ tears my heart.

God allows me to exist outside himself. It is for me to refuse this authorization. The self is only the shadow which sin and error cast by stopping the light of God, and I take this shadow for a being.

Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.

Arriba se está en mala posición para darse cuenta de las cosas, y abajo para actuar. Creo que ahí radica de manera general una de las causas esenciales de las desgracias humanas. Es por eso que he querido ir yo misma abajo de todo, y por lo que quizá volveré. Simone Weil. Carta a Victor Bernard

Through my suffering I only felt the presence of a love analogous to that which one reads in the smile of a beloved face.

La science est aujourd'hui regardée par les uns comme un simple catalogue de recettes techniques, par les autres comme un ensemble de pures spéculations de l'esprit qui se suffisent à elles-mêmes ; les premiers font trop de peu de cas de l'esprit et les seconds du monde.

Base motives have in them more energy than noble ones. Problem: in what way can the energy belonging to the base motives be transferred to the noble ones?

Yet no suffering befalls whoever relinquishes justice and truth, whereas the party system has painful penalties to chastise insubordination. These

The object of an action and the level of the energy by which it is carried out are distinct from each other. A certain thing must be done. But where is the energy to be drawn for its accomplishment? A virtuous action can lower a man if there is not enough energy available on the same level.

The unjust will of an entire nation is by no means superior to the unjust will of a single individual.

When a soul achieves a love that fills the whole universe equally, this love must become the chick with golden wings that pierces the egg of the world. After this it loves the universe not from the inside, but from the outside, from the place where our firstborn brother, the Wisdom of God, is seated.

Ceux qui ont dit jusqu'ici que les applications sont le but de la science voulaient dire que la vérité ne vaut pas la peine d'être cherchée et que le succès seul importe ;

Il s'agit, après avoir toujours plié, tout subi, tout encaissé en silence, d'oser enfin se redresser. Se tenir debout. Prendre la parole à son tour. Se tenir des hommes pendant quelques jours... Cette grève en elle-même est joie pure.

Denial of Saint Peter. To say to Christ: 'I will never deny Thee' was to deny him already, for it was supposing the source of faithfulness to be in himself and not in grace.

There is a transcendent energy whose source is from heaven that flows into us as soon as we desire it. It is the true energy; it executes actions through the mediation of our souls and our bodies. We should ask for this food. The moment we ask for it and even by the fact that we ask, we know that God wants to give it to us.

How much time do you devote to thinking each day?

Water is indifferent in this way to the objects which fall into it. It does not weigh them; it is they which weigh themselves, after a certain time of oscillation.