21 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
21 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Generosity and Attention'
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date: '2018-06-03T08:45:57-04:00'
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permalink: /generosity-and-attention/
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tags:
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- writing
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---
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Among the reading I’ve picked up thanks to suggestions from the most generous readers of the draft of [*Generous Thinking*](http://generousthinking.hcommons.org) is a bit of Simone Weil. Alan Jacobs, who pointed me toward her work in a couple of spots, noted in particular that she [“seems to have thought that /[attention/] is the primary form of generosity.”](https://generousthinking.hcommons.org/1-introduction/generous-thinking/#comment-94) So I’ve been reading around in the places where her thoughts turn to attention, including [*Gravity and Grace*](https://amzn.to/2J9buN0) and [*Waiting for God*](https://amzn.to/2LTrjck).
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A quick search online for Weil and attention, however, surfaces a vast number of references to her most quotable quote:
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> Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
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But that quote is never accompanied by a citation; in fact, [this incompletely answered question on Quora](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-exact-source-and-citation-for-the-Simone-Weil-quotation-%E2%80%9CAttention-is-the-rarest-and-purest-form-of-generosity?share=1) leads not to a source but to yet another quotation. It’s the free-floating nature of that aphorism that I suspect leads Alan to say that she “seems” to have thought this connection between attention and generosity.
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So I find myself in an odd spot: The quotation, assuming it’s a quotation, perfectly describes the thing I am trying to explore. And yet this specific point is small enough, and there are so many other issues in revising the manuscript that also demand my attention, that I can only give so much time to running down the source, assuming there is one.
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I’m opting to go with an “attributed to” reference, at least for the moment, but I’d be enormously grateful if anyone were able to point me to an actual original.
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