More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.
Simone Weil

Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.
Simone Weil

Nothing can have as its destination anything other than its origin. The contrary idea, the idea of progress, is poison.
Simone Weil

Nothing is less instructive than a machine.
Simone Weil

One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about rights.
Simone Weil

Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission.
Simone Weil

Petroleum is a more likely cause of international conflict than wheat.
Simone Weil

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.
Simone Weil

The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work.
Simone Weil

The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.
Simone Weil

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
Simone Weil

The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
Simone Weil

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

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Simone Weil

The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.
Simone Weil

The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.
Simone Weil

The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.
Simone Weil

The only way into truth is through one's own annihilation; through dwelling a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
Simone Weil

The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
Simone Weil

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