Simone Weil citáty
Simone Weil
Datum narození: 3. únor 1909
Datum úmrtí: 24. srpen 1943
Další jména: Simone Weilová
Simone Weil [simon véj], byla francouzská filosofka, sociální reformátorka a mystička.
Citáty Simone Weil
„Člověk je stvořen přirozenými a společenskými silami a může být jimi „odtvořen.““
Zdroj: [Velké postavy západního myšlení, 1999, 655, 80-7260-002-8]
„The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.“
— Simone Weil, kniha Waiting for God
Waiting on God (1950), Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
Zdroj: Waiting for God
„The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.
Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. … Every separation is a link.“
— Simone Weil, kniha Gravity and Grace
Zdroj: Gravity and Grace
„Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude.“
— Simone Weil, kniha Gravity and Grace
Zdroj: Gravity and Grace
„Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification.“
"Faiths of Meditation; Contemplation of the divine" as translated in The Simone Weil Reader (1957) edited by George A. Panichas, p. 417
Kontext: Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong.
„The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression.“
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Kontext: The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression.
The need for truth requires that intellectual culture should be universally accessible, and that it should be able to be acquired in an environment neither physically remote nor psychologically alien.
„Conscience is deceived by the social. Our supplementary energy (imaginative) is to a great extent taken up with the social. It has to be detached from it. That is the most difficult of detachments.“
Zdroj: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Great Beast (1947), p. 123
„But a war of any scope will give rise to others as formidable.“
"Reflections on War" (1933); also in Formative Writings (2009)
Kontext: The prospects of revolution seem therefore quite restricted. For can a revolution avoid war? It is, however, on this feeble chance that we must stake everything or abandon all hope. An advanced country will not encounter, in the case of revolution, the difficulties which in backward Russia served as a base for the barbarous regime of Stalin. But a war of any scope will give rise to others as formidable.
„It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.“
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Kontext: It is the aim of public life to arrange that all forms of power are entrusted, so far as possible, to men who effectively consent to be bound by the obligation towards all human beings which lies upon everyone, and who understand the obligation.
Law is the quality of the permanent provisions for making this aim effective.
„From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path would be short and direct, if one cared to take it.“
— Simone Weil, kniha The Need for Roots
The Need for Roots (1949), p. 292
Kontext: Concern for the symbol has completely disappeared from our science. And yet, if one were to give oneself the trouble, one could easily find, in certain parts at least of contemporary mathematics... symbols as clear, as beautiful, and as full of spiritual meaning as that of the circle and mediation. From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path would be short and direct, if one cared to take it.
„Any government whose members commit this crime, or authorize it in their subordinates, has betrayed its function.“
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Kontext: The proportions of good and evil in any society depend partly upon the proportion of consent to that of refusal and partly upon the distribution of power between those who consent and those who refuse.
If any power of any kind is in the hands of a man who has not given total, sincere, and enlightened consent to this obligation such power is misplaced.
If a man has willfully refused to consent, then it is in itself a criminal activity for him to exercise any function, major or minor, public or private, which gives him control over people's lives. All those who, with knowledge of his mind, have acquiesced in his exercise of the function are accessories to the crime.
Any State whose whole official doctrine constitutes an incitement to this crime is itself wholly criminal. It can retain no trace of legitimacy.
Any State whose official doctrine is not primarily directed against this crime in all its forms is lacking in full legitimacy.
Any legal system which contains no provisions against this crime is without the essence of legality. Any legal system which provides against some forms of this crime but not others is without the full character of legality.
Any government whose members commit this crime, or authorize it in their subordinates, has betrayed its function.
„In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.“
Zdroj: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Power of Words (1937), p. 222
Kontext: There is no area in our minds reserved for superstition, such as the Greeks had in their mythology; and superstition, under cover of an abstract vocabulary, has revenged itself by invading the entire realm of thought. 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. In every sphere, we seem to have lost the very elements of intelligence: the ideas of limit, measure, degree, proportion, relation, comparison, contingency, interdependence, interrelation of means and ends. To keep to the social level, our political universe is peopled exclusively by myths and monsters; all it contains is absolutes and abstract entities. This is illustrated by all the words of our political and social vocabulary: nation, security, capitalism, communism, fascism, order, authority, property, democracy. We never use them in phrases such as: There is democracy to the extent that... or: There is capitalism in so far as... The use of expressions like "to the extent that" is beyond our intellectual capacity. Each of these words seems to represent for us an absolute reality, unaffected by conditions, or an absolute objective, independent of methods of action, or an absolute evil; and at the same time we make all these words mean, successively or simultaneously, anything whatsoever. Our lives are lived, in actual fact, among changing, varying realities, subject to the casual play of external necessities, and modifying themselves according to specific conditions within specific limits; and yet we act and strive and sacrifice ourselves and others by reference to fixed and isolated abstractions which cannot possibly be related either to one another or to any concrete facts. In this so-called age of technicians, the only battles we know how to fight are battles against windmills.
