There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that pain and detachment are intertwined, and true detachment requires acknowledging and enduring pain without deceit.
Simone Weil's quote explores the complex relationship between pain and detachment. It posits that one cannot truly experience detachment without first understanding and enduring pain, and that if pain is ignored or lied about, it undermines the possibility of genuine detachment. This interplay implies that facing our struggles honestly is crucial for achieving a state of inner peace and separation from attachments that bind us emotionally.
In practice
In a philosophical debate about the nature of suffering.
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
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.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
A man walks on through life - with the external call ringing in his ears but with no response stirring in his heart, and then suddenly, without any warning, the Spirit taps him on the shoulder. What happens? He turns 'round. The word 'repentance' means 'turning 'round.' He repents and believes and is saved.
Our knowledge of God is perfected by gratiitude: we are thankful and rejoice in the experience of the truth that He is love.
And though the newspapers called the shooting the Crime of the Century, Goldman knew it was only 1906 and there were ninety-four years to go.
What use would wings be to a man bound in iron fetters? They would only drive him to even greater despair.
Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
The land on which the cattle grazed was communal property. It was owned by no one. It was nobody's private farm. It was the common property of the people, shared by the people. So the practice of sharing was central to the concept of ownership of property.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.