"Prayer consists simply in giving to God all the careful attention of which the soul is capable."
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Quote collection
Simone Weil quotes (page 14 of 19)
374 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Contradiction is the lever of transcendence."
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"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."
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"Of two men who have no experience of God, he who denies him is perhaps nearer to him than the other."
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"The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship."
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"Compassion directed to oneself is humility."
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"To be innocent is to bear the weight of the entire universe. It is to throw away the counterweight."
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"Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this incomparable agony, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed."
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"Every kind of reward constitutes a degradation of energy."
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"The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation."
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"Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt."
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"The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment ... is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God."
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"The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth."
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"one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it."
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"Academic work is one of those fields which contain a pearl so precious that it is worth while to sell all our possessions, keeping nothing for ourselves, in order to be able to acquire it."
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"Joy is being fully aware of reality."
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"The miser deprives himself of his treasure because of his desire for it."
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"Modern life is given over to immoderation. Immoderation invades everything: actions and thought, public and private life."
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"The right to kill: supposing the life of X ... were linked with our own so that the two deaths had to be simultaneous, should we still wish him to die? If with our whole body and soul we desire life and if nevertheless without lying, we can reply 'yes'> then we have the right to kill."
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"It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in, God. He only has to refuse his ultimate love to everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose any belief. It is enough to recognize what is obvious to any mind: that all the goods of this world, past, present, and future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire that perpetually burns within us for an infinite and perfect good."
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