Love is not consolation, it is light.
Interpretation
Love is not merely a comfort; it is an illuminating force in our lives.
In this quote, Simone Weil emphasizes that love transcends simple consolation or temporary relief. Instead, love serves as a guiding light that provides clarity, purpose, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us, enriching our lives in profound ways.
In practice
During a wedding toast to highlight the importance of love in a couple's life.
The afflicted are not listened to. They are like someone whose tongue has been cut out and who occasionally forgets the fact. When they move their lips no ear perceives any sound. And they themselves soon sink into impotence in the use of language, because of the certainty of not being heard.
The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either
As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.
Evil is license, and that is why it is monotonous: everything has to be drawn from ourselves. One is condemned to false infinity. That is hell itself.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
How many people have been thus led, through lack of self-confidence, to stifle their most justified doubts?
Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, angels affect us oft, and worshiped be.
I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
She is all the great heroines of the world in one. She is more than an individual. I love her, and I must make her love me. I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.
Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.
Love is an emerald. Its brilliant light wards off dragons On this treacherous path.
You need the living, loving heart of living, loving men and women to quicken other hearts, which can live too and love too, and, in their turn, will quicken others which are dying now.
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