Men owe us what we imagine they will give us. We must forgive them this debt.
Interpretation
We often project expectations onto others that may not align with reality, and it's important to forgive them for not meeting these imagined expectations.
Simone Weil's quote emphasizes the tendency of individuals to create expectations about what others should provide or fulfill, often based on our own desires or imaginations. It highlights the psychological burden of these unmet expectations and encourages a mindset of forgiveness, suggesting that one should not hold others accountable for not living up to the ideals we conjure in our minds, thus promoting emotional health and deeper understanding in relationships.
In practice
In a discussion on managing relationships and expectations, you might cite this quote to explain the necessity of understanding and forgiving others.
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?
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
Truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen.
Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the universal struggle for life, or more difficult - at least I have found it so - than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind...We behold the face of nature bright with gladness...We do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are idly singing round us mostly live on insects and seeds, and are thus constantly destroying life.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." One would like to add: Give unto man things which are man's; give man his freedom and personality, his rights and religion.
When death finally comes you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the pheneomenal world really is.
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