“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
“To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.”
ArtAll Quotes by Simone Weil
“The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.”
Teacher“The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.”
Hope“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Imagination“In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.”
Power“Humility is attentive patience.”
Patience“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“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“Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does.”
God“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“More 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.”
Respect“The future is made of the same stuff as the present.”
Future“If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe.”
Future“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“Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.”
Power“The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.”
Intelligence“The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.”
Intelligence“Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link.”
Communication“To write the lives of the great in separating them from their works necessarily ends by above all stressing their pettiness, because it is in their work that they have put the best of themselves.”
Best“Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.”
Knowledge