"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."
"Moreover, nothing is so rare as to see misfortune fairly portrayed; the tendency is either to treat the unfortunate person as though catastrophe were his natural vocation, or to ignore the effects of misfortune on the soul, to assume, that is, that the soul can suffer and remain unmarked by it, can fail, in fact, to be recast in misfortune's image."
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Source: Simone Weil (2005). “War and the Iliad”, New York Review of Books
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"We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them."
"Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on."
"There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction."
"Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand."
"Just as the power of the sun is the only force in the natural universe that causes a plant to grow against gravity, so the grace of God is the only force in the spiritual universe that causes a person to grow against the gravity of their own ego."