Quotes from Simone Weil

A science which does not bring us nearer to God is worthless.

There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

Every atheist is an idolater- unless he is worshipping the true God in his impersonal aspect. The majority of the pious are idolaters.

The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry , the only ersatz of God , the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself.

One has only the choice between God and idolatry. There is no other possibility. For the faculty of worship is in us, and it is either directed somewhere into this world, or into another.

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

If it were conceivable that in obeying God one should bring about one's own damnation whilst in disobeying him one could be saved, I should still choose the way of obedience.

[We are not] to take one step, even in the direction of what is good, beyond that to which we are irresistibly impelled by God, and this applies to action, word, and thought.

In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God.

One might lay down as a postulate: All conceptions of God which are incompatible with a movement of pure charity are false. All other conceptions of him, in varying degree, are true.

The sum of the particular intentions of God is the universe itself.

We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists.

When literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.

There is a certain kind of morality which is even more alien to good and evil than amorality is.

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

What hope is there for innocence if it is not recognized?

The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State.

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

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.

No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope.

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

We possess nothing in the world - a mere chance can strip us of everything - except the power to say 'I.

To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile.