Simone Weil Quotes

Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself.

The Greeks are wrong to recognize coming into being and perishing; for nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being composition and perishing dissolution.

[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust.

The One, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, these are what we call the transcendental attributes of Being, because they surpass all the limits of essences and are coextensive with Being.

That which is cannot be true.

The German language speaks Being, while all the others merely speak of Being.

The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time.

Everything that is possible demands to exist.

I think, therefore I am.

Existence is an imperfection.

Doesn't becoming imply time?

Wizard's Ninth Rule A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole.

Metaphysics,--the science which determines what can and what cannot be known of being and the laws of being.

Being is born of not being.

Metaphysics must be based on what exists, for it has the task of explicating it.

The Greeks do not think correctly about coming-to-be and passing-away; for no thing comes to be or passes away, but is mixed together and dissociated from the things that are. And thus they would be correct to call coming-to-be mixing-together and passing-away dissociating

If there is existence, there must be non-existence. And if there was a time when nothing existed, there must have been a time before that - when even nothing did not exist. Suddenly, when nothing came into existence, could one really say whether it belonged to the category of existence or non-existence?

Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

His main principles were indeed as follows: everything it is possible to imagine can also exist.

Is it true that existence consists only in the action of energy? Or is it not rather that energy is an output of Existence?

No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.