Simone Weil Quotes

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.

Those who tortured me had no right to inflict such humiliation on a human being, physically upon my person, and morally upon themselves.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured, but we can reduce the number of tortured children.

You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.

Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done to men. Whenever a man cries inwardly: 'Why am I being hurt?' harm is being done to him. He is often mistaken when he tries to define the harm, and why and by whom it is being inflicted on him. But the cry itself is infallible.

But those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak.

Cambodia was not a mistake; it was a crime. The world is diminished by the experience.

The abused children are alone with their suffering, not only within the family, but also within themselves. They cannot crate a place in their own soul where they could cry their beart out.

Loss makes me feel vulnerable. I've had my share, less than so many though, but enough to feel empathy. It's tough and I see it so much on Earth, too much suffering. The loss of free will I find unacceptable - what most of us refer to as rights.

Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree?

Are we even now? Or do you want to rape my body as much as you’ve raped my soul? (Acheron)

it is the worst humiliation and grievance of the suffering, that they cause suffering.

I couldn't stop bawling, watching the towers come down. it was a terrible thing to happen. And a terrible thing to realize that I don't sit though the nigh crying when such horrors happen all the time.

The tragedy of our lives is that, while we suffer from the wounds afflicted on us by those who love us, we cannot avoid wounding those we want to love.

Sorrow spares no one, and scars respect no person.

Pain is an event ... Suffering, on the other hand, is the nightmare reliving of unscrutinized and unmetabolized pain.

All I can think is that when you torment a person...the soul dies. When the soul dies, I suppose mercy dies, too.

Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.

Mr. Solomon was right the worst kind of torture is watching someone you love get hurt.

Thomas hated the people who'd taken this poor, innocent kid form his family. He hated them with a passion he didn't know a human could feel. He wanted them dead, tortured, even. He wanted Chuck to be happy. But happiness had been ripped form their lives. Love had been ripped from their lives.

Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.

And I've been hurt hurt bad. I might be just twenty-six, but I'm an old woman in disguise twenty-six goin'on sixty-five.

By then Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.

They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They never tell you that when you watch someone you once loved dying, hovering between this life and the next, it's twice as painful, because you're reliving two lives that traveled one road together.

Have you ever experienced a pain so sharp in your heart that it's all you can do to take a breath? It's a pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy; you wouldn't want to pass it on to anyone else for fear he or she might not be able to bear it. It's the pain of being betrayed by a person with whom you've fallen in love. It's not as serious as death, but it feels a whole lot like it, and as I've come to learn, pain is pain any way you slice it.