“I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness.”

—  Simone Weil

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Void and Compensation (1947), p. 200

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I also am other than what I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness." by Simone Weil?
Simone Weil photo
Simone Weil 193
French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909–1943

Related quotes

Michel De Montaigne photo

“I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book II, Ch. 16
Attributed

“Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.”

Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book IV: Taran Wanderer (1967), Chapter 21
Context: “I saw myself,” Taran answered. “In the time I watched, I saw strength – and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other.
“But this, too, I saw,” he went on. “Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same. You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“If I only know what I am convinced of and have found out myself, if I really only know what I have experienced myself, then indeed I cannot say that I have the least knowledge about my vocation; I only know what others claim to know about it.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Wenn ich nur dasjenige weiß, und von ihm überzeugt bin, was ich selbst gefunden, – nur dasjenige wirklich kenne, was ich selbst erfahren habe, so kann ich in der That nicht sagen, daß ich über meine Bestimmung das Geringste wisse; ich weiß blos, was Andre darüber zu wissen behaupten.
Source: The Vocation of Man (1800), P. Preuss, trans. (1987), p. 4

Ava Gardner photo

“God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Source: Ava: My Story

“In any remembering, thinking or imagining, although the object of my intending is some state of affairs or other, I am also potentially aware as I intend that what I am doing is an act of remembering, thinking, or imagining. My asserting that S is P is not an assertion of mine unless I am implicitly aware as I assert that I am asserting, not entertaining the possibility that, S is P.”

Robert B. Pippin (1948) American philosopher

Source: Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (1989), p. 21

Linus Pauling photo

“I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.”

Linus Pauling (1901–1994) American scientist

Lecture at Yale University, "Chemical Achievement and Hope for the Future." (October 1947) Published in Science in Progress. Sixth Series. Ed. George A. Baitsell. 100-21, (1949).
1940s-1960s
Context: Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences – and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made… But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe — and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

C. N. R. Rao photo

“I am also working on materials never worked on in the world, completely new type of materials on the planet. I am worried not so much for myself, I will go on working. But I am worried for others.”

C. N. R. Rao (1934) Indian chemist

Scientist wonders why nobody asks him about Dan David prize (2013)

Guillaume Apollinaire photo

“One day
One day I waited for myself
I said to myself Guillaume it's time you came
So I could know just who I am
I who know others”

Guillaume Apollinaire book Alcools

Un jour
Un jour je m'attendais moi-même
Je me disais Guillaume il est temps que tu viennes
Pour que je sache enfin celui-là que je suis
Moi qui connais les autres
"Cortège", line 19; translation from Roger Shattuck (trans.) Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire (New York: New Directions, 1971) p. 75.
Alcools (1912)

D.H. Lawrence photo

“Nobody knows you.
You don't know yourself.
And I, who am half in love with you,
What am I in love with?
My own imaginings?”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Source: The Complete Poems

Adolf Hitler photo

“I know that some Man capable of giving our problems a final solution must appear. I have sought such a Man. I could nowhere discover Him. And that is why I have set myself to do the preparatory work; only the most urgent preparatory work, for I know that I am myself not, the One. And I know also what is missing in me. But the other One still remains aloof, and nobody comes forward, and there is no more time to be lost.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in Warum? Woher? Aber Wohin? by Hans Grimm, p. 14
Other remarks

Related topics