There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God. - Simone Weil
Men owe us what they imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt. - Simone Weil
Affliction compels us to recognize as real what we do not think possible. - Simone Weil
The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade. - Simone Weil
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose. - Simone Weil
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed. - Simone Weil
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. - Simone Weil
One must always be prepared to switch sides with justice, that fugitive of the winning camp. - Simone Weil
We have to endure the discordance between imagination and fact. It is better to say, I am suffering, than to say, This landscape is ugly. - Simone Weil
It is to the prodigals...that the memory of their Father's house comes back. If the son had lived economically he would never have thought of returning. - Simone Weil
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life. - Simone Weil
A mind enclosed in language is in prison. - Simone Weil
Love is not consolation. It is light. - Simone Weil
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. - Simone Weil
All sins are attempts to fill voids. - Simone Weil
We have to believe in a God who is like the true God in everything except that he does not exist, since we have not reached the point where God exists. - Simone Weil
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish. - Simone Weil
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. - Simone Weil
What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. - Simone Weil
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself. - Simone Weil
Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors who when their turn comes, will manufacture professors. - Simone Weil
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. - Simone Weil
If three steps are taken without any other motive than the desire to obey God, those three steps are miraculous; they are equally so whether they take place on dry land or on water. - Simone Weil
The sum of the particular intentions of God is the universe itself. - Simone Weil