science has now been for a long time - and to an ever-increasing extent - a collective enterprise. Actually, new results are always, in fact, the work of specific individuals; but, save perhaps for rare exceptions, the value of any result depends on such a complex set of interrelations with past discoveries and possible future researches that even the mind of the inventor cannot embrace the whole.
Simone WeilFor when two beings who are not friends are near each other there is no meeting, and when friends are far apart there is no separation.
Simone WeilWhen literature becomes deliberately indifferent to the opposition of good and evil it betrays its function and forfeits all claim to excellence.
Simone WeilAt the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Simone WeilTo want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.
Simone WeilEven if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.
Simone WeilCharity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.
Simone WeilWorkers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.
Simone WeilWhen once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
Simone WeilChrist himself came down and took possession of me. . . I had never foreseen the possibility of that, of a real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God. . . in this sudden possession of me by Christ, neither my sense nor my imagination had any part: I only felt in the midst of my suffering the presence of a love.
Simone WeilI think that it is useless to fight directly against natural weaknesses. One has to force oneself to act as though one did not have them in circumstances where a duty makes it imperative; and in the ordinary course of life one has to know these weaknesses, prudently take them into account, and strive to turn them to good purpose; for they are all capable of being put to some good purpose.
Simone WeilIf we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else.
Simone WeilGod is rich in mercy. I know this wealth of his with the certainty of experience, I have touched it.
Simone WeilWe cannot take a single step toward heaven. It is not in our power to travel in a vertical direction. If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.
Simone WeilIf someone does me injury I must desire that this injury shall not degrade me. I must desire this out of love for him who inflicts it, in order that he may not really have done evil.
Simone WeilMore than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
Simone WeilThe whole evolution of present-day society tends to develop the various forms of bureaucratic oppression and to give them a sort of autonomy in regard to capitalism as such.
Simone WeilIt is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.
Simone WeilThe children of God should not have any other country here below but the universe itself, with the totality of all the reasoning creatures it ever has contained, contains, or ever will contain. That is the native city to which we owe our love.
Simone WeilThere can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul.
Simone WeilThe difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone WeilA doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines.
Simone WeilThe supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.
Simone WeilThose who keep the masses of men in subjection by exercising force and cruelty deprive them at once of two vital foods, liberty and obedience; for it is no longer within the power of such masses to accord their inner consent to the authority to which they are subjected. Those who encourage a state of things in which the hope of gain is the principle motive take away from men their obedience, for consent which is its essence is not something which can be sold.
Simone WeilThe extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it.
Simone WeilIntellectual adherence is never owed to anything whatsoever, for it is never in any degree a voluntary thing. Attention alone is voluntary. It alone forms the subject of an obligation.
Simone WeilThe payment of debts is necessary for social order. The non-payment is quite equally necessary for social order. For centuries humanity has oscillated, serenely unaware, between these two contradictory necessities.
Simone WeilIt is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.
Simone WeilThe love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, "What are you going through?
Simone WeilWhen war is waged, it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it.
Simone WeilA man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again
Simone WeilHow many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
Simone WeilDo not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it.
Simone WeilThe intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone Weil[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.
Simone WeilIn solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention.
Simone WeilWe do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them.
Simone WeilEquality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.
Simone WeilJustice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him. Every being cries out silently to be read differently.
Simone Weil