We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.
Interpretation
Instead of hoping for our problems to vanish, we should seek the ability to change and grow from them.
This quote by Simone Weil encourages us to face our troubles head-on rather than wishing them away. It emphasizes that the true strength lies in our capacity to transform our challenges into opportunities for growth, resilience, and grace. By understanding and accepting our difficulties, we can learn valuable lessons and become stronger individuals.
In practice
In a motivational talk about resilience, I might say, 'As Simone Weil puts it, we must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles, but for the grace to transform them.'
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?
Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.
Every single choice we make, no matter how small, is the ground where who we are meets what is in the world. And the fruits of that essential relationship- the intimate, fertile conversation between our own heart's wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us- becomes a lifelong practice of deep and sacred listening for the next right thing we are required to do. We make the only choice that feels authentic and honest, necessary and true in that moment.
To know when to be generous and when firmβthat is wisdom.
The slacker does not plow during planting season; at harvest time he looks, and there is nothing.
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
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