#is

We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise. ↗

— Simone Weil

#imaginary #must #paradise #prefer #real

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

#being #being deceived #deceived #doctrine #doctrines

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him. ↗

— Simone Weil

#compassion #difficult #him #just #know

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

#does #first #force #intoxicates #man

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded. ↗

— Simone Weil

#becoming #cannot #catholic #centuries #christian

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. ↗

— Simone Weil

#civilized #destroy #enslave #europe #european

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

#day #else #false #got #illness

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. ↗

— Simone Weil

#because #compulsions #conscious #crowd #dynamic

In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs. ↗

— Simone Weil

#church #considered #degenerate #inevitably #into

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

#been #cause #down #established #just