Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
Interpretation
Unhappy individuals seek companionship and understanding from others. Their greatest need is for attentive, caring people in their lives.
This quote by Simone Weil highlights the importance of human connection for those experiencing unhappiness. It suggests that emotional support and genuine attention from others can be a crucial remedy for loneliness and despair, emphasizing that in times of distress, companionship can provide the solace and understanding that individuals need.
In practice
In a speech addressing mental health, one might say, 'Remember, those who are unhappy need our attention and support more than anything else.'
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?
Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.
As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off.
But I didn't understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.
No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child without a permit for parenthood.
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