Simone Weil citáty

strana 7

„Trpět neznamená nic jiného než myslet na neštěstí.“

„Touha je nemožná: ničí svůj předmět… Protože toužit po něčem je nemožné, je nutné toužit po ničem…. Láska. Chtěla bych, aby mě ten, koho miluji, miloval. Ale když je mi naprosto oddán, už neexistuje. Přestávám ho milovat. Nasycení. A dokud mi není zcela oddán naprosto, nemiluje mě dost…. Jsme-li zklamáni potěšením, na něž jsme čekali a jehož se nám dostává, příčina zklamání tkví v tom, že jsme čekali budoucnost. A jakmile nastane, je to přítomnost. Chtěli bychom, aby budoucnost byla tu, a přitom nepřestala být budoucností. Absurdní. absurdnost, kterou vyhojí pouze věčnost.“

„Svoboda v konkrétním slova smyslu spočívá v možnosti volby.“

„Láska k našemu bližnímu v celé jeho plnosti jednoduše znamená být schopen říci: Co prožíváš?“

„Člověk je stvořen přirozenými a společenskými silami a může být jimi „odtvořen.““

„Mohu, tedy jsem.“

„Když jsme v jeho moci, nepociťujeme zlo jako zlo, ale jako nutnost, dokonce jako povinnost.“

„Právo, jež nikdo neuznává, mnoho neznamená.“

“The might which kills outright is an elementary and coarse form of might. How much more varied in its devices; how much more astonishing in its effects is that other which does not kill; or which delays killing.”

“The essential characteristic of the first half of the twentieth century is the growing weakness, and almost the disappearance, of the idea of value.”

“I have sometimes told myself that if only there were a notice on church doors forbidding entry to anyone with an income above a certain figure, and a low one, I would be converted at once.”

“If all men, by the act of being born, are destined to suffer violence, that is a truth to which the empire of circumstances closes their minds.”

“Gregorian chant, Romanesque architecture, the Iliad, the invention of geometry were not, for the people through whom they were brought into being and made available to us, occasions for the manifestation of personality.”

“The miser deprives himself of his treasure because of his desire for it.”

“It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.”

“The simultaneous existence of opposite virtues in the soul — like pincers to catch hold of God.”

“I feel ceaselessly and increasingly torn, both in my intelligence and in the depth of my heart, by my inability to conceive simultaneously and in truth of the affliction of humans, the perfection of God, and the relation between the two.”

“The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.”

“The thought of being under absolute compulsion, the plaything of another, is unendurable for a human being. Hence, if every way of escape from the constraint is taken from him, there is nothing left for him to do but to persuade himself that he does the things he is forced to do willingly, that is to say, to substitute devotion for obedience.”

“The first thing that we know about ourselves is our imperfection.
This is what Descartes meant when he said: 'I know God before I know myself.'”