In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention.
Interpretation
Humility enables focused attention and deep understanding.
Simone Weil's quote highlights that true humility is not just about modesty, but rather the capacity to direct one's attention effectively and earnestly. It suggests that being humble fosters an open mind, allowing us to learn and comprehend more profoundly, ultimately enhancing our intellectual pursuits.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one could say, 'As Simone Weil stated, humility, which is the power of attention, is essential for true understanding.'
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?
You clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed. Such natures are justly the hardest for themselves to bear.
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
A madman and an arahant both smile, but the arahant knows why while the madman doesn't.
If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.
That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.
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