Simone Weil Quotes
Simone Weil was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Trained in philosophy alongside Simone de Beauvoir, she taught at provincial lycees while spending vacations in factories, in the fields, and on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War in order to share the conditions of those she wrote about. The quotes below are attributed to Simone Weil, organized by topic.
Browse Simone Weil by topic
Simone Weil on Freedom
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“Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense, consists in the ability to choose.”
Ch. 3, Liberty
Simone Weil on Knowledge
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“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts : to construct and to refrain from destruction .”
The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees -
“I have sometimes told myself that if only there were a notice on church doors forbidding entry to anyone with an income above a certain figure, and a low one, I would be converted at once.”
Letter to Georges Bernanos (1938), in Seventy Letters , as translated by Richard Rees (Wipf and Stock: 1965), p. 105 -
“Original: L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité .”
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity . -
“Wrongly or rightly you think that I have a right to the name of Christian . I assure you that when in speaking of my childhood and youth I use the words vocation, obedience, spirit of poverty, purity, acceptance, love of one's neighbor, and other expressions of the same kind, I am giving them the exact signification they have for me now. Yet I was brought up by my parents and my brother in a compl”
Last letter to Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, from a refugee camp in Casablanca (26 May 1942), as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 111 -
“Concern for the symbol has completely disappeared from our science . And yet, if one were to give oneself the trouble, one could easily find, in certain parts at least of contemporary mathematics... symbols as clear, as beautiful, and as full of spiritual meaning as that of the circle and mediation. From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path would be short and direct, if one cared to take it.”
The Need for Roots (1949), p. 292
Simone Weil on Life
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Attributed to Simone Weil:
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
Simone Weil on Love
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“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
Original: L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité . | From an April 13, 1942 letter to poet Joë Bousquet , published in their collected correspondence ( Correspondance [Lausanne: Editions l'Age d'Homme, 1982], p. 18). -
“Love is not consolation. It is light.”
As quoted in Simone Weil (1954) by Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin , p. 47
Simone Weil on Mind
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Attributed to Simone Weil:
“The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.”
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Attributed to Simone Weil:
“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Simone Weil on Politics
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“The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees”
Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts : to construct and to refrain from destruction . -
“The prospects of revolution seem therefore quite restricted. For can a revolution avoid war ? It is, however, on this feeble chance that we must stake everything or abandon all hope . An advanced country will not encounter, in the case of revolution, the difficulties which in backward Russia served as a base for the barbarous regime of Stalin . But a war of any scope will give rise to others as formidable.”
Reflections on War" (1933); also in Formative Writings (2009) -
“Reflections on War" (1933); also in Formative Writings (2009)”
The prospects of revolution seem therefore quite restricted. For can a revolution avoid war ? It is, however, on this feeble chance that we must stake everything or abandon all hope . An advanced country will not encounter, in the case of revolution, the difficulties which in backward Russia served as a base for the barbarous regime of Stalin . But a war of any scope will give rise to others as fo
Simone Weil on Virtue
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Attributed to Simone Weil:
“All sins are attempts to fill voids.”