Simone Weil

Every new development for the last three centuries has brought men closer to a state of affairs in which absolutely nothing would be recognized in the whole world as possessing a claim to obedience except the authority of the State. The majority of people in Europe obey nothing else.

All the goods of this world...are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire that perpetually burns within us for an infinite and perfect good.

To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal.

A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is anonymous about it.

...nothing on earth can stop man from feeling himself born for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.

In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.

It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.

Friendship is a miracle by which a person consents to view from a certain distance, without coming any nearer, the very being who is as necessary to him as food.

Today it is not nearly enough to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent.

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.

There are two atheisms of which one is a purification of the notion of God.

Official history is believing the murderers at their word.

Religion as a source of consolation is an obstacle to true faith.

The need of truth is more sacred than any other need.

At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Contradiction is the lever of transcendence.

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just.

When science, art, literature, and philosophy are simply the manifestation of personality, they are on a level where glorious and dazzling achievements are possible, which can make a man's name live for thousands of years. But above this level, far above, separated by an abyss, is the level where the highest things are achieved. These things are essentially anonymous.

Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.

The future is made of the same stuff as the present.