display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 591 | Excellence is a sort of completion [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Excellence is a sort of completion. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1021b19) |
| 625 | Is excellence separate from things, or part of them, or both? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Does the universe possess goodness and excellence as something separated and by itself, or because of its arrangement? But why should it not be both ways? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075a14) |
| 621 | Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contemplation is a supreme pleasure and excellence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1072b22) |
| 23815 | We cannot equally respect what is unequal, so equal respect needs a shared ground [Weil] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to feel equal respect for things that are in fact unequal unless the respect is given to something that is identical in all of them. Men are all unequal in all their relations with things of this world. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.223) | |
| A reaction: Weil votes for some link to transcendence in each of us, but I would prefer some more naturalistic proposal for what we all have in common. There are plenty of aspects which unite all human beings, which grounds this unconditional respect. |
| 23823 | Life needs risks to avoid sickly boredom [Weil] |
| Full Idea: The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is a sickness of the human soul. | |
| From: Simone Weil (Draft Statement of Human Obligations [1943], p.229) | |
| A reaction: An unusual analysis of boredom. I think it is probably purposeful activity that we need, rather than actual risk, with all the stresses that involves. Risks are justified by their rewards. |