Quotation
Last reviewed:
“We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.”
Simone Weil · Moral philosophy · Modern · notebooks of the 1940s; collection published 1947
What does it mean?
We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. Will pushes. Attention looks, steadily, until a fault loses the darkness it needs. A rival reading says this abandons discipline, and that a fault loved for its drama will not be stared into submission. She is not advising you to have no practice. She thinks the wrong kind of muscular virtue makes the self tighter and more proud, so the struggle feeds the fault. Attention is the alternative discipline. The sentence comes from notebooks arranged by Gustave Thibon in Gravity and Grace.
Did Simone Weil really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Standard English of a notebook passage included in Gravity and Grace. The selection and the order are Thibon's. The thought is Weil's; the book as a book is an editorial object. Translations vary slightly.
Where it comes from
Gravity and Grace, from the notebooks, edited by Gustave Thibon
Approximate date: notebooks of the 1940s; collection published 1947.
How to use it
Instead of a clenched resolution about a fault, set ten minutes to look at it clearly, what it seeks, what it costs someone else in the house, without performing a struggle. That is the practice. It can fail. A failed look is not evidence that clenching was the cure she missed.
A mindset reading
This is not a permission to drift. It is a claim about pride. The person who needs to feel themselves overcoming is, on her account, still feeding the self the fault belongs to.
Understand the philosophy
Weil contrasts gravity, the pull of ego and force, with grace. Attention is on the side of grace. Reading Gravity and Grace, remember the order is Thibon's. A line that sounds like a proverb may be a fragment he placed.
- self
- virtue
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. Will pushes. Attention looks, steadily, until a fault loses the darkness it needs. A rival reading says this abandons discipline, and that a fault loved for its drama will not be stared into submission. She is not advising you to have no practice. She thinks the wrong kind of muscular virtue makes the self tighter and more proud, so the struggle feeds the fault. Attention is the alternative discipline. The sentence comes from notebooks arranged by Gustave Thibon in Gravity and Grace.
Did Simone Weil really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Standard English of a notebook passage included in Gravity and Grace. The selection and the order are Thibon's. The thought is Weil's; the book as a book is an editorial object. Translations vary slightly.
Which work is it in?
Gravity and Grace, from the notebooks, edited by Gustave Thibon Approximate date: notebooks of the 1940s; collection published 1947.