It is not the cause for which men took up arms that makes a victory more just or less, it is the order that is established when arms have been laid down. – Simone Weil
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. – Simone Weil
When 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 Weil
Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison. – Simone Weil
The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil. – Simone Weil
The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell. – Simone Weil
There 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 Weil
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. – 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. – Simone Weil
I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances. – Simone Weil
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. – Simone Weil
In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish. – Simone Weil
A doctrine serves no purpose in itself, but it is indispensable to have one if only to avoid being deceived by false doctrines. – Simone Weil
Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses. – Simone Weil
The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry. – Simone Weil
In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention. – Simone Weil
Charity. To love human beings in so far as they are nothing. That is to love them as God does. – Simone Weil
If 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 Weil
Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication. – Simone Weil
For 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 Weil
