There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.

Simone Weil

Simone Weil

Related Quotes

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.

— Simone Weil

JoyLearningRunning

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

— Simone Weil

ImaginationFictionLife

Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.

— Simone Weil

BeingsCannotCrushed

There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice.

— Simone Weil

CrimeHideousJustice

The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest.

— Simone Weil

AttentionEcstasyFullest