5 Simone Weil Quotes on Learning

Simone Weil quotes on learning

55. The most important part of education - to teach the meaning of to know (in the scientific sense).

56. Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.

57. School children and students who love God should never say: 'For my part I like mathematics'; 'I like French'; 'I like Greek.' They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.

59. Above all our thought should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it. All wrong translations, all absurdities in geometry problems, all clumsiness of style, and all faulty connection of ideas in compositions and essays, all such things are due to the fact that thought has seized upon some idea too hastily, and being thus prematurely blocked, is not open to the truth.

62. Paradoxical as it may seem, a Latin prose or a geometry problem, even though they are done wrong, may be of a great service one day, provided we devote the right kind of effort to them. Should the occasion arise, they can one day make us better able to give someone in affliction exactly the help required to save him, at the supreme moment of his need.