Contemplation quotes:

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Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. -- Nicolas Chamfort
What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love. -- Meister Eckhart
The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible. -- Gabriel Marcel
What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. -- Meister Eckhart
The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. -- Aristotle
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful. -- Edgar Allan Poe
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated. -- Auguste Rodin
I think a lot of contemplation happens in bathtubs. It does for me. Nothing like a hot bath to ease the tension and think about what's going to happen next. -- Sarah McLachlan
If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world. -- Sri Chinmoy
Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them. -- Gabriel Marcel
Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges. -- Russell M. Nelson
Contemplation is wisdom's best nurse. -- John Milton
Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives. -- Tahir Shah
To Contemplation's sober eye. / Such is the race of Man. -- Thomas Gray
Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing. -- Dodie Smith
Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it. -- Owen Feltham
Contemplation within activity is a million times better than contemplation within stillness. -- Hakuin Ekaku
Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Contemplation for an hour is better than formal worship for sixty years. -- Muhammad
Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity. -- Thomas Merton
Contemplation places us in a purity and radiance which is far above our understanding. -- John of Ruysbroeck
Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience. -- Randolph Bourne
Him that yon soars on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheelÃ¨d throne, the Cherub Contemplation. -- John Milton
Vice: Whatever was passion in the contemplation of man, being brought forth by his will into action. -- James Harrington
Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate. -- Thomas Aquinas
Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food - the way to get life out of it -- Tryon Edwards
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind. -- Thomas Jefferson
Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others. -- Marian Wright Edelman
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. -- Diane Arbus
But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation. -- Samuel Alexander
An art aims, above all, at producing something beautiful which affects not our feelings but the organ of pure contemplation, our imagination. -- Eduard Hanslick
Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation. -- John Jay Chapman
The proper Science and Subject for Man's Contemplation is Man himself. [Fr., La vraie science et le vrai etude de l'homme c'est l'homme.] -- Pierre Charron
We want a state wise in its contemplation - just in its actions - and moderate in the reach of government into our lives. -- Sonny Perdue
Contemplation is that condition of alert passivity, in which the soul lays itself open to the divine Ground within and without, the immanent and transcendent Godhead. -- Aldous Huxley
We have wasted our spirit in the regions of the abstract and general just as the monks let it wither in the world of prayer and contemplation. -- Alexander Herzen
Contemplation is nothing else but a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which, if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the Spirit of love. -- John of the Cross
There is nothing so depressing as a constant contemplation of one's self, and the greatest moral cowardice in the world's opinion comes from consulting one's own personal convenience. -- Marie Corelli
Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness. -- Richard Rohr
It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going? -- Carl Sandburg
It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. -- Rachel Carson
I feel like I'm stepping into a place of spiritual contemplation every time I enter a studio; it's always had a certain magic to me that has never worn off with familiarity. -- David Knopfler
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. -- Hans Arp
Because of Christianity the West has missed many things, and one of them is meditation, the rarest flowering of a human being, because they have made it equivalent to contemplation. Contemplation is thinking. Meditation is no-thinking. -- Rajneesh
Wisdom's self oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, where with her best nurse Contemplation, she plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings that in the various bustle of resort were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired. -- John Milton
Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane', does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness, indeed the supreme happiness; but it is founded upon sorrow. -- Josef Pieper
Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self. There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation, and the superficial, external self which we commonly identify with the first person singular. -- Thomas Merton
Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence of God and learns something of the secret of His perfections less by seeing than by fruitive love." -- Thomas Merton
What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without love there would be no contemplation." Contemplation is a loving attainment of awareness. It is intuition of the beloved object. -- Josef Pieper
In certain strains of Judaism, there's a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can't possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we're off track. -- Ben Marcus
Enjoying art is a personal matter. It's made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction. -- Renzo Piano
Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion. -- Liberty Hyde Bailey
The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation. -- Simone Weil
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. -- Emile Durkheim
I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life's mystery and unpredictability, of life's generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation. -- Jane Smiley
Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. -- Hans Arp
A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life. -- Lewis Mumford
Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read. -- Ross Perot
He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men. -- Isaac Asimov
Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers. -- Deepak Chopra
There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow - of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body - has been pleasant to dwell upon. -- Solomon Northup
Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe. -- Wayne Dyer
Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle - even though it cannot be solved - is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine. -- Tom Robbins
All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society. -- Paulo Coelho
I have often thought with wonder of the great goodness of God; and my soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever! For I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires. -- Saint Teresa of Avila
Action and contemplation are... -- Bernard of Clairvaux
There is no art without contemplation. -- Robert Henri
Worship is adoring contemplation of God. -- R. A. Torrey
Work without contemplation is never enough. -- Douglas V. Steere
Yesterday for contemplation, today for action. -- James Burgh
Teach correctly... Find delight in contemplation. -- Saint Augustine
Self-contemplation is infallibly the symptom of disease. -- Thomas Carlyle
Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit. -- Henry Ward Beecher
Reformation ends not in contemplation, but in action. -- George Gillespie
Comedy is the kindly contemplation of the incongruous. -- P. G. Wodehouse
Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring. -- Thomas Merton
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Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation. -- Herbert Read
the contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation -- Albert Einstein
One hour of contemplation surpasses sixty years of worship. -- Elijah Muhammad
Society develops wit, but its contemplation alone forms genius. -- Madame de Stael
No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram. -- Alfred North Whitehead
Recitation of the Qur'an without contemplation and thought is futile. -- Ali ibn Abi Talib
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation. -- Isaac Newton
Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation. -- Kenneth Rexroth
The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings. -- Plato
I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world. -- Gustave Flaubert
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. -- Jacob Bronowski
All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. -- Susan Sontag
Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory. -- Viktor E. Frankl
Action isn't my forte. I'm an expert on contemplation and mild regret. -- Robert Sheckley
I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words. -- bell hooks
Give me, kind heaven, a private station, a mind serene for contemplation. -- John Gay
The mind grows sicker than the body in contemplation of it's suffering. -- Ovid
True contemplation is reflecting on the blessings of God in your life. -- Harold Klemp
Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace. -- Hermann Hesse
That which a man acquires by contemplation he should spend in love. -- Meister Eckhart
In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God. -- John Milton
We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of action. -- Pope Gregory I
The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation. -- Simone Weil
The greatness of contemplation can be given to none but those who love. -- Pope Gregory I
The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action. -- M. Scott Peck
The wider our contemplation of creation, the grander is our conception of God. -- Cyril of Jerusalem
I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity. -- Honore de Balzac
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's uneasiness. -- Ambrose Bierce
Spirituality will take you like love; it seduces you from contemplation to completeness. -- Bryant McGill
The man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman. -- Ananda Coomaraswamy
Wisdom requires not only the investigation of many things, but contemplation of the mystery. -- Jeremy Narby
There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful arrangement. -- Arthur Phillips
Faith may be relied upon to produce sustained action and, more rarely, sustained contemplation. -- Aldous Huxley
A person may rise to the highest degree of contemplation even when busily occupied. -- Mary Euphrasia Pelletier
The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation. -- Leonardo da Vinci
Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation. -- Clarence Darrow
Self-recognition, the self-contemplation of spirit is the primary movement out of which all creativeness proceeds. -- Paul Twitchell
I practice Buddhist philosophy and contemplation but I don't know if I'm more of anything. -- Goldie Hawn
The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation. -- Josef Pieper
Amid those scenes of solitude... the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things. -- Thomas Cole
Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite. -- Christian Morgenstern
The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation. -- Geoffrey Elton

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