Simone Weil: Frasi in inglese (pagina 5)

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943)
Contesto: There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men.
Although it is beyond the reach of any human faculties, man has the power of turning his attention and love towards it.
Nothing can ever justify the assumption that any man, whoever he may be, has been deprived of this power.
It is a power which is only real in this world in so far as it is exercised. The sole condition for exercising it is consent.
This act of consent may be expressed, or it may not be, even tacitly; it may not be clearly conscious, although it has really taken place in the soul. Very often it is verbally expressed although it has not in fact taken place. But whether expressed or not, the one condition suffices: that it shall in fact have taken place.
To anyone who does actually consent to directing his attention and love beyond the world, towards the reality that exists outside the reach of all human faculties, it is given to succeed in doing so. In that case, sooner or later, there descends upon him a part of the good, which shines through him upon all that surrounds him.

Waiting on God (1950), Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
Contesto: 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.

p. 120 http://books.google.it/books?id=lpuZIgerNroC&pg=PA120 (1997 edition)
Gravity and Grace (1947)

From an April 13, 1942 letter to poet Joë Bousquet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%AB_Bousquet, published in their collected correspondence (Correspondance [Lausanne: Editions l'Age d'Homme, 1982], p. 18).
Originale: L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. https://books.google.com/books?id=BxpMAAAAMAAJ&q=%22L%E2%80%99attention+est+la+forme+la+plus+rare+et+la+plus+pure+de+la+g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rosit%C3%A9%22&dq=%22L%E2%80%99attention+est+la+forme+la+plus+rare+et+la+plus+pure+de+la+g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rosit%C3%A9%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD6K24mfvLAhUGax4KHW4HAjkQ6AEIPjAF

Origine: Waiting for God

As quoted in Simone Weil (1954) by Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin, p. 47

Origine: Gravity and Grace

Origine: Lectures on Philosophy

Origine: Lectures on Philosophy

Origine: Waiting for God

Origine: Gravity and Grace

Variante: All sins are attempts to fill voids.