“Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.”
History
“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
ImaginationAll Quotes by Simone Weil
“Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.”
Beauty“There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.”
Society“The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.”
Teacher“Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.”
God“A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war.”
War“As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.”
Fear“We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.”
Alone“What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.”
War“Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.”
Truth“Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.”
Art“Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.”
Knowledge“Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.”
Intelligence“In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.”
Power“I can, therefore I am.”
Motivational“The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.”
Truth“The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.”
Intelligence“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Imagination“Equality 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.”
Equality“The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.”
Faith