Weil Quotes & Sayings

Reverence is an emotion that we can nurture in our very young children, respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents. — Zoe Weil

Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time. — Andrew Weil

But your greatest blessing was of another order. In gaining my friendship through your charity - I have never encountered its equal - you have furnished me with a source of inspiration more powerful and more pure that one could find among human things. For nothing among human things is as powerful for maintaining our gaze, applied ever more intensely on God, than friendship with the friends of God. — Simone Weil

It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance. — Simone Weil

It is unrealistic to want to be happy all the time. — Andrew Weil

The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it. — Simone Weil

My personal opinion is that the neutral position on the mood spectrum - what I called emotional sea level - is not
happiness but rather contentment and the calm acceptance that is the goal of many kinds of spiritual practice. — Andrew Weil

Armies under the control of ... a sovereign State cannot bring freedom to anyone. — Simone Weil

To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny. — Simone Weil

Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy. — Andrew Weil

Plato also knew clearly, and indicated by allusions in his works, the dogmas of the Trinity, mediation, the incarnation, the Passion and the notions of grace and salvation through love. He knew the essential truth. Namely, that God is good. He is only all-powerful in addition. — Simone Weil

If Germany, thanks to Hitler and his successors, were to enslave the European nations and destroy most of the treasures of their past, future historians would certainly pronounce that she had civilized Europe. — Simone Weil

We cannot take a single step towards heaven.
It is not In our power to travel in a vertical direction.
If however we look heavenward for a long time, God comes and takes us up.
He raises us easily. — Simone Weil

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt , there is tyranny . — Simone Weil

You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything. — Simone Weil

More than one skillful physician has said that if one asks the right questions, the patient will make the diagnosis for you in his or her own words. — Andrew Weil

Compassion directed toward oneself is true humility. — Simone Weil

Our science is like a store filled with the most subtle intellectual devices for solving the most complex problems, and yet we are almost incapable of applying the elementary principles of rational thought. — Simone Weil

In solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention. — Simone Weil

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it. — Simone Weil

The beauty of this world is Christ's tender smile coming to us through matter. — Simone Weil

Isolation is at the heart of all disease, therefore healing requires community and the support of others. — Sharon Weil

Why is it that reality, when set down untransposed in a book, sounds false? — Simone Weil

THIS is the story of an orgasm. Or it could be said this is the story of an orgasm that never was, and then was, and once it was, it's the story of all the ripples it set in motion. It's the reiteration of the total fecundity slam dance, Big Bang Explosion that created the world. — Sharon Weil

A village idiot, in the literal sense, who really loves the truth, even when he only babbles, is in his thinking infinitely superior to Aristotle. He is infinitely nearer to Plato than Aristotle ever was. — Simone Weil

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy. — Simone Weil

Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just. — Simone Weil

To us, men of the West, a very strange thing happened at the turn of the century; without noticing it, we lost science, or at least the thing that had been called by that name for the last four centuries. What we now have in place of it is something different, radically different, and we don't know what it is. Nobody knows what it is. — Simone Weil

Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. — Simone Weil

It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world
and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish
she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France. — Simone Weil

To be always relevant, you have to say things which are eternal. — Simone Weil

The world is God's language to us. — Simone Weil

At the very best, a mind enclosed in language is in prison. It is limited to the number of relations which words can make simultaneously present to it; and remains in ignorance of thoughts which involve the combination of a greater number. These thoughts are outside language, they are unformulable, although they are perfectly rigorous and clear and although every one of the relations they involve is capable of precise expression in words. So the mind moves in a closed space of partial truth, which may be larger or smaller, without ever being able so much as to glance at what is outside. — Simone Weil

Ursula, we have to talk ... ' he said, almost blurting. He couldn't believe he was in the "we have to talk" position. It was so unnerving. 'I have to ask you ... Let's be each other's emergency contact numbers.' This was his first concession towards commitment. — Sharon Weil

Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others. Whoever is rooted himself doesn't uproot others. — Simone Weil

People are afraid of anything they don't understand. When they understand, when they know the truth, they can do something about it. — Ann Weil

It was kind of like songwriter's boot camp. You had to produce. You had to produce fast. You had to learn. — Cynthia Weil

The man who has known pure joy, if only for a moment ... is the only man for whom affliction is something devastating. At the same time he is the only man who has not deserved the punishment. But, after all, for him it is no punishment; it is God holding his hand and pressing rather hard. For, if he remains constant, what he will discover buried deep under the sound of his own lamentations is the pearl of the silence of God. — Simone Weil

It is to the prodigals ... that the memory of their Father's house comes back. If the son had lived economically he would never have thought of returning. — Simone Weil

We must love all facts, not for their consequences, but because in each fact God is there present. — Simone Weil

The essential characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century is the growing weakness, and almost the disappearance, of the idea of value. — Simone Weil

All those who possess in its pure state the love of their neighbour and the acceptance of the order of the world, inclucing affliction-all those, even should they live and die to all appearances atheists, are surely saved. — Simone Weil

All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass. — Simone Weil

I am not against all forms of high-tech medicine. Drugs and surgeries have a secure place in the treatment of serious health conditions. But modern American medicine treats almost every health condition as if it were an emergency. — Andrew Weil

Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. This is why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome, early possesses the significance charged with horror which the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism. — Simone Weil

The essential thing to know about God is that God is Good. All the rest is secondary. — Simone Weil

When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination. This — Simone Weil

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. — Simone Weil

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it. — Simone Weil

What a country calls its vital ... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war. — Simone Weil

The desire to transcend one's own ego boundaries, to share completely, even for a moment, the consciousness of another person must be a universal longing. It motivates many of our activities from taking drugs to making love, and lies behind the search for new ways of getting close to one another that is so intense in our society today. — Andrew Weil

Why is the determination to fight against a prejudice a sure sign that one is full of it? Such a determination necessarily arises from an obsession. It constitutes an utterly sterile effort to get rid of it. In such a case the light of attention is the only thing which is effective, and it is not compatible with a polemical intention. — Simone Weil

I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.
But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. 'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.'
All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light. — Maggie Nelson

Conscious breath control is a useful tool for achieving a relaxed, clear state of mind. — Andrew Weil

Short naps are good. Given modern workplace demands, this is not possible for many people - but if you have the option, try napping for ten to twenty minutes in the afternoon, preferably lying down in a darkened room. — Andrew Weil

The apprehension of necessity is an imitation of creation. — Simone Weil

One recognises that the partisan spirit makes people blind, makes them deaf to justice, pushes even decent men cruelly to persecute innocent targets. One recognises it, and yet nobody suggests getting rid of the organisations that generate such evils. — Simone Weil

Giving gifts to others is a fundamental activity, as old as humanity itself. Yet in the modern, complex world, the particulars of gift-giving can be extraordinarily challenging. — Andrew Weil

The beauty of the world is Christ's tender smile for us coming through matter. — Simone Weil

Museums matter only to the extent that they are perceived to provide communities they serve with something of value beyond their mere existence." - STEPHEN WEIL — G. Wayne Clough

If three steps are taken without any other motive than the desire to obey God, those three steps are miraculous; they are equally so whether they take place on dry land or on water. — Simone Weil

Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas. — Andrew Weil

Human bodies are designed for regular physical activity. The sedentary nature of much of modern life probably plays a significant role in the epidemic incidence of depression today. Many studies show that depressed patients who stick to a regimen of aerobic exercise improve as much as those treated with medication. — Andrew Weil

Rigour is to the mathematician what morality is to men. — Andre Weil

Science has now been for a long time - and to an ever-increasing extent - a collective enterprise. Actually, new results are always, in fact, the work of specific individuals; but, save perhaps for rare exceptions, the value of any result depends on such a complex set of interrelations with past discoveries and possible future researches that even the mind of the inventor cannot embrace the whole. — Simone Weil

If there is a real desire, if the thing desired is really light, the desire for light produces it. There is a real desire when there is an effort of attention. It is really light that is desired if all other incentives are absent. — Simone Weil

Every time that a man has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Buddha, the Tao, etc., the Son of God has answered him by sending the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has acted upon his soul, not by inciting him to abandon his religious tradition, but by bestowing upon him light [-] It is, therefore, useless to send out missions to prevail upon the peoples of Asia, Africa or Oceania to enter the Church. — Simone Weil

We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy. Our current picture of freedom encourages a dream-like facility; whereas what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Simone Weil said that morality was a matter of attention not of will. We need a new vocabulary of attention. — Iris Murdoch

I shook my head, thinking this girl has more issues than Vogue. — J.L. Weil

If you have difficulty sleeping or are not getting enough sleep or sleep of good quality, you need to learn the basics of sleep hygiene, make appropriate changes, and possibly consult a sleep expert. — Andrew Weil

The ways that my dogs can make me - and my visitors - happy constantly amazes me. — Andrew Weil

To be innocent is to bear the weight of the entire universe. It is to throw away the counterweight. — Simone Weil

When I think of the Crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy. — Simone Weil

The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest. — Simone Weil

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice. — Simone Weil

True definition of science: the study of the beauty of the world. — Simone Weil

Ginny who lived her life with hair in the breeze, Stillman who lived his with it under his hat. And he loved her so much the worse for it. — Josh Weil

Remember that breath walking - as with any meditation technique - should not be pursued with a grim determination to 'get it right.' The point is to cultivate openness, relaxation and awareness, which can include awareness of your undisciplined, wandering mind. — Andrew Weil

In this world, only those people who have fallen to the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, who are not just without any social consideration but are regarded by all as being deprived of that foremost human dignity, reason itself - only those people, in fact, are capable of telling the truth. All the others lie. — Simone Weil

It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or even perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at. — Simone Weil

One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering. — Simone Weil

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. — Simone Weil

Simone Weil was absolutely right- beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts. Because this is so true, we must have a measure of beauty in our lives proportionate to our affliction. No more. Much more. Is this not God's prescription for us? Just take a look around. — John Eldredge

Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good. — Simone Weil

The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit. — Simone Weil

No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope. — Simone Weil

Excess exercise tends to be counterbalanced by excess hunger, exemplified by the phrase 'working up an appetite.' A few people with extraordinary willpower can resist such hunger day after day, but for the vast majority, weight loss through exercise is a flawed option. — Andrew Weil

It's rare - too rare, I have to say - for botanists to become doctors. — Andrew Weil

The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it's too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios. — Andrew Weil

When the rebel in her touched the rebel in him, and the rebel in him touched the rebel in her, their fears incinerated. When his rebel sperm penetrated her rebel egg, that mysterious shimmer burst forth a blinding light, and a calcium wave signaled the information everywhere it could go. It has turned her into a visionary and turned him into a warrior - on a mission to save M. Earth, in the name of love. — Sharon Weil

Oh, so suddenly you're an expert in crazy?" "After meeting you, I feel I could write a thesis on the subject, — J.L. Weil

Hope is a helium balloon. It is a wish lantern set out into the dark sky of night. — Sharon Weil

Either God is not all-powerful, or God is not absolutely good, or God does not command wherever He has the power to do so. So the existence of evil here below, far from being a proof against the reality of God, is what reveals Him to us in truth. — Simone Weil

Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude. — Simone Weil

[We are not] to take one step, even in the direction of what is good, beyond that to which we are irresistibly impelled by God, and this applies to action, word, and thought. — Simone Weil

Whoever, within his own soul and in human relations, escapes the dominion of force is loved but loved sorrowfully because of the threat of destruction that constantly hangs over him. — Simone Weil

As an American, you have a right to good health care that is effective, accessible, and affordable, that serves you from infancy through old age, that allows you to go to practitioners and facilities of your choosing, and that offers a broad range of therapeutic options. — Andrew Weil

Dreaming is a phenomenon of purely individual consciousness, and consequently impossible to thoroughly deconstruct by a community of researchers. But dreaming matters. — Andrew Weil

A beautiful woman looking at her image in the mirror may very well believe the image is herself. An ugly woman knows it is not. — Simone Weil

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end. — Simone Weil