The Need for Roots Quotes

“The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right springing not from the individual who possesses it, but from other men who consider themselves as being under a certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is not worth very much.

It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such words only express differences in point of view. The actual relationship between the two is as between object and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself. A man left alone in the universe would have no rights whatever, but he would have obligations.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“History is a tissue of base and cruel acts in the midst of which a few drops of purity sparkle at long intervals.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“It is not enough to have perceived such a notion, given it one’s attention, understood it; it must be given a permanent place in the mind, so that it may be present even when one’s attention is directed toward something else.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“Man requires, not rice or potatoes, but food; not wood or coal, but heating. In the same way, for the needs of the soul, we must recognize the different, but equivalent, sorts of satisfaction which cater for the same requirements.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“Tant que l'homme tolère d'avoir l'âme emplie de ses propres pensées, de ses pensées personnelles, il est entièrement soumis jusqu'au plus intime de ses pensées à la contrainte des besoins et au jeu mécanique de la force. S'il croit qu'il en est autrement, il est dans l'erreur. Mais tout change quand, par la vertu d'une véritable attention, il vide son âme pour y laisser pénétrer les pensées de la sagesse éternelle.”
― Simone Weil, L'enracinement

“Human beings have roots by virtue of their real, active, and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape particular treasures of the past and particular expectations for the future.”
― Simone Weil , The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations Towards the Human Being

“It sometimes happens that a thought, either formulated to oneself or not formulated at all, works secretly on the mind and yet has but little direct influence over it.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“If the middle classes haven’t the same need of an apocalypse, it is because long rows of figures have a poetry, a prestige which tempers in some sort the boredom associated with money; whereas, when money is counted in sixpences, we have boredom in its pure, unadulterated state. Nevertheless, that taste shown by bourgeois, both great and small, for Fascism, indicates that, in spite of everything, they too can feel bored.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“Physical labour is a daily death”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“In the fourteenth century, to pay any taxes other than exceptional levies acquiesced in for war purposes was looked upon as dishonourable, a disgrace reserved for conquered countries and the manifest sign of slavery.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“Truth lights up the soul in proportion to its purity, not in any sense to its quantity. It isn't the quantity of metal which matters, but the degree of alloy. In this respect, a little pure gold is worth a lot of pure gold. A little pure truth is worth as much as a lot of pure truth. Similarly, one perfect Greek statue contains as much beauty as two perfect Greek statues.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“There isn't a man on earth who doesn't at times pronounce an opinion on good and evil, even if it be only to find fault with somebody else.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind

“L'histoire est un tissu de bassesses et de cruautés où quelques gouttes de pureté brillent de loin en loin.”
― Simone Weil, L'enracinement

“Men cannot imagine themselves being the victim of wrongs which they find it quite natural to inflict upon others. But when that, in fact, happens, to their own horror, they find it to be quite natural; to their hearts they can find nothing to produce the necessary indignation and resistance against a form of treatment which they themselves have never been reluctant to inflict.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots : Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind

“The spirit of truth can dwell in science on condition that the motive prompting the savant is the love of the object that forms the stuff of his investigations. That object is the universe in which we live. What can we find to love about it, if it isn't its beauty? The true definition of science is this: the study of the beauty of the world.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots

“The savants insist that the public should regard science with that religious respect which is owed to truth, and the public accepts to do so. But it is being deceived. Science is not a fruit of the spirit of the truth, and this is obvious as soon as one looks into the matter.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots

“Generally speaking, the most serious mistakes, those which warp completely the mental processes, destroy the soul, placing it outside the reach of truth and goodness, cannot be discerned. For they are caused by the fact that certain things escape the scrutiny of the mind. If they escape such scrutiny, how could they be scrutinised, however hard one were to try? That is why truth is, in essence, a supernatural good.”
― Simone Weil, The Need for Roots