Contemplative quotes:

Send

Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness. -- Thomas Merton
This may come as a surprise, given the nature of my job, but I am very guarded and contemplative. I'm not a naturally boisterous person. -- Ed Helms
Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer. -- Johannes Tauler
All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment. -- David Whyte
Contemplative and bookish men must of necessity be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they go towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way. -- John Donne
Could the purr be anything but contemplative? -- Irving Townsend
Of all animals, he alone attains to the Contemplative Life. -- Andrew Lang
There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues. -- Thomas Merton
Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative -- Aristotle
Before, I just spewed whatever it was I thought about everything. I tend to be more contemplative now -- Anne Heche
Composing a piece of music is very feminine. It is sensitive, emotional, contemplative. By comparison, doing housework is positively masculine. -- Barbara Kolb
I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. -- Elizabeth Janeway
Compassion will no longer be seen as a spiritual luxury for a contemplative few; rather it will be viewed as a social necessity for the entire human family. -- Duane Elgin
The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish; it generates a style of conversation, contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent, and unaffected. -- William Makepeace Thackeray
From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. -- Mary Wollstonecraft
Contemplative prayer [oraciÃ³n mental] in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us. -- Teresa of Avila
The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den. -- Lewis H. Lapham
One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you. -- Thomas Merton
The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working with such a spirit of detachment and recollection that even his work is a prayer -- Thomas Merton
In contemplative prayer we seek to become the person we are called to be, not by thinking of God, but by being with God. Simply to be with God is to be drawn into being the person God calls us to be -- John Main
The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood. -- Susan Sontag
Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet. -- Thomas Aquinas
What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking. -- Nicholas G. Carr
Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor. -- Mother Teresa
A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life. -- Christopher Hitchens
The Protestant wing of the western church, which is a tiny percentage of the Body of Christ, is nearly completely (98%) unaware that the Holy Spirit is restoring contemplative prayer-center stage-to the church The Holy Spirit is restoring this precious jewel (contemplative prayer) to the body of Christ. This is the God ordained means of attaining the fullness of God. -- Mike Bickle
In my personal life, I am very contemplative. -- Antonio Banderas
The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live. -- Nicolas Chamfort
Before, I just spewed whatever it was I thought about everything. I tend to be more contemplative now. -- Anne Heche
How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative? -- Michael Arad
I live a very secluded life, a very contemplative life and a very meditative one. That is my ideal life. -- Alice Walker
I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative. -- Richard Rohr
One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. -- Sam Harris
Metal isn't necessarily aggressive. There's metal that's contemplative, there's metal that's sad, and there's metal that's exuberant. No genre is limited in what it can express. -- John Darnielle
From about 5 years old on, I was very contemplative and started to become constantly filled with nostalgia for the present moment and the feeling that it's always fleeting. -- Alex Ebert
My goats are not contemplative, accepting, or introspective. They are the Greek chorus of my farm, sometimes of my life. They watch me closely and remind me that I am foolish. -- Jon Katz
Baseball is meant to be a contemplative game. They play music to draw young people to the game. If young people can't come to the game without music, then they should stay home. -- W. P. Kinsella
Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. -- Richard Courant
To make films, you have to have boundless energy; you have to work and play with others really, really well, and I'm really a more contemplative kind of person. I like to sit at home and think, a lot. -- Janet Fitch
Almost everyone who reaches a plateau where he or she is happy and comfortable says it's because of finding balance between work, relaxation, exercise, socialising and family - plus some alone time to do something contemplative, creative, or educational. -- Neil Strauss
The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like. -- Derek Jacobi
We have to learn not to feel guilty about letting our imagination browse around, and you know, in writing fiction particularly. But I think, in any kind of writing, we have to learn to allow ourselves to approach it in a contemplative way. -- Sue Monk Kidd
Introspection, or 'sitting in the silence,' is an unscientific way of trying to force apart the mind and senses, tied together by the life force. The contemplative mind, attempting its return to divinity, is constantly dragged back toward the senses by the life currents. -- Paramahansa Yogananda
I think instead writers and publishers and readers need to go to the places where people are, and make the argument that there is great value to the quiet, contemplative process of reading a novel, that reading great books carefully offers pleasures and consolations that no iPad app ever can. -- John Green
Barack Obama is not a man of The Gut, and it is driving official Washington crazy. This is a good thing, because resisting The Gut is what the Constitution is all about, especially in its war powers, which this president is conspicuously contemplative about exercising, at least in every context except launching drones. -- Charlie Pierce
Witty, brooding, contemplative, explosive: take your pick. -- Margo Jefferson
There's no Biblical definition of contemplative prayer -- Mike Bickle
Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject. -- G. H. Hardy
It is to this silence [contemplative prayer] that we all are called. -- Henri Nouwen
We should all without shame enrol in the school of contemplative prayer. -- Richard J. Foster
This mystical stream [contemplative prayer] is the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality. -- Tilden Edwards
Science is a contemplative possession of reality through exclusion of all illusion, error and ignorance. -- Georges Canguilhem
The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you are deeply contemplative, you listen more carefully and understand things which cannot be articulated. -- David A. Cooper
When we are on the water, our contemplative impulses range from the intense to the nearly absent. -- Paul Schullery
Fishing has been styled 'a contemplative man's recreation,' ... and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation. -- Henry David Thoreau
The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places. -- Thomas Merton
We become, after the arrival of the printing press in general, more attentive more attuned to contemplative ways of thinking. -- Nicholas G. Carr
Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active. -- William Kingdon Clifford
A contemplative should pay equal attention to concentration, energetic effort and equanimity, and not exclusively to one of these factors only. -- Gautama Buddha
Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer. -- Larry Crabb
--
Art is not communicative, art is not reflexive. Art, science, philosophy are neither contemplative, neither reflexive, nor communicative. They are creative, that's all. -- Gilles Deleuze
Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass? -- Michel de Montaigne
Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy. -- Bertrand Russell
I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province. -- Francis Bacon
To be contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God. -- Joan D. Chittister
Woe to the youth whom Fancy gains, Winning from Reason's hand the reins, Pity and woe! for such a mind Is soft contemplative, and kind. -- Walter Scott
If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives. -- Henri Nouwen
The principles of my works... are the extinction of expression, permanent covering and contemplative tranquillity... My ideal is the completely dark picture, full of some overwhelming silence. -- Arnulf Rainer
A contemplative life has more the appearance of a life of piety than any other; but it is the divine plan to bring faith into activity and exercise. -- Lord David Cecil
We need the wisdom of women, and the experience of married people and parents, and the depth of the contemplative if we are to be formed as preachers. -- Timothy Radcliffe
Certainly my films are cinematically unusual, and quite contemplative in their pacing compared to conventional films, but I think overall they are quite engaging, accessible, and even funny. -- Jenni Olson
As strenuous challenge or contemplative retreat, the parks and other units of the national lands offer welcome respite from the world, a safety valve for body and spirit. -- T. H. Watkins
Fly-fishing is solitary, contemplative, misanthropic, scientific in some hands, poetic in others, and laced with conflicting aesthetic considerations. It's not even clear if catching fish is actually the point. -- John Gierach
This seems to have been St. Augustine's very notion of "memory," not just nostalgia for some past moment, but connecting past, present, and future in one complete contemplative knowing. -- Richard Rohr
For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends. -- Thomas Aquinas
Man's activity consists in either a making or doing. Both of these aspects of the active life depend for their correction upon the contemplative life (that is, the Hero). -- Ananda Coomaraswamy
I was thinking about dying the other day the death thought came while I was sitting on the toilet peeing - that's where I have my most contemplative thoughts. -- Madonna Ciccone
I am not a contemplative type, basically. I am much more of an action person and, as a consequence, I look forward to today and tomorrow and what's breaking. -- Walter Cronkite
Inspirational Psychology includes the practical application of identifying the thoughts and mistaken beliefs that cause us pain, along with a contemplative practice to discover our true nature, which is Love. -- Lee L Jampolsky
Astronauts were not the impulsive daredevils so dear to the stereopticonloving public. They couldn't afford to be. The hazards of the profession required an infinite capacity for cautious, contemplative thought. -- Eric Frank Russell
Your mind is the greatest home entertainment center ever created. It requires contemplative silence to really discover who you truly are. You have immense talents, resources and abilities that are untapped. -- Mark Victor Hansen
Most religions have always appreciated the extreme power of concentrated thought directed toward the benefit of others, especially when that person is practicing in solitude. That's why they have contemplative orders. -- Tenzin Palmo
Another of the things I started to do during this time was what Buddhists normally call "meditation" or, in Christian terms, "contemplative prayer". It began to supersede deipnosophy as my favorite hobby. -- Sara Maitland
The book is the book and it will always be there. It's a quiet ending. In the book it's a contemplative ending which I think you could certainly do that in a movie. -- Jane Goldman
I cannot imagine why my vision will have some value in the world..and yet I know it will..I think I will count because I am patient and recueilli (contemplative) in some degree. -- Gwen John
But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties. -- Robert Benchley

Send