Simone Weil, from "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God" in Waiting For God. New York: Harper & Row, 1951, 105.
The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it. The highest part of the attention only makes contact with God, when prayer is intense and pure enough for such a contact to be established.
