Contemplation Quotes

We have collected and put the best contemplation quotes. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

Whilst in the life of the intellect ‘contemplation‘ refers to thinking profoundly about something, in the religious life contemplation is a kind of inner vision or seeing, transcendent of the intellect, facilitated by means of practices such as prayer or meditation.

Contemplation is a thoughtful and searching reflection upon a topic. In religion, it is usually a type of prayer or meditation.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought
of his name:
his ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name. – T.S. Eliot

What is contemplation?

Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them. – Gabriel Marcel

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 does not rest until it has found the object which dazzles it. – Konrad Weiss

Contemplation for an hour is better than formal worship for sixty years. – Muhammad

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives. – Tahir Shah

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

Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it. – Owen Feltham

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 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

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

Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity. – Thomas Merton

Contemplation is the root of awareness and creativity. – Sandra Chantry

Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food – the way to get life out of it – Tryon Edwards

Contemplation is wisdom’s best nurse. – John Milton

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

Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth. – Robert A. Heinlein

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges. – Russell M. Nelson

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. – Nicolas De Chamfort

Contemplation places us in a purity and radiance which is far above our understanding. – John of Ruysbroeck

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing. – Dodie Smith

Contemplation within activity is a million times better than contemplation within stillness. – Hakuin Ekaku

Contemplation; intrinsic. I am aligned perception. A, perfected plan. I am ferocious and tranquil. Rising. Pain to power. Alchemic. Energising. – Aletheia Liola

… the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul. – Josef Pieper

…feminism never harmed anybody unless it was some feminists. The danger is that the study and contemplation of “ourselves” may become so absorbing that it builds by slow degrees a high wall that shuts out the great world of thought. – Rheta Childe Dorr

A contemplation of God’s works, a generous concern for the good of mankind, and the unfeigned exercise of humility only, denominate men great and glorious. – Joseph Addison

A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. – John Marshall

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

A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. . . . It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, ‘Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?’ . . . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one’s time—the stuff of life. – Carl Sandburg

A person may rise to the highest degree of contemplation even when busily occupied. – Mary Euphrasia Pelletier

A pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

A recurring image in the work of the Rossetti circle was that of a woman absorbed in self-contemplation, gazing into a mirror or combing her hair. – Elizabeth Prettejohn

A secret to happiness is letting every situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be. – Unknown

A solid foundation is nothing without contemplation and strategies. – Wazim Shaw

Action and contemplation are very close companions; they live together in one house on equal terms. Martha and Mary are sisters. – Bernard of Clairvaux

Action and contemplation are… – Bernard of Clairvaux

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

Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring. – Thomas Merton

Action isn’t my forte. I’m an expert on contemplation and mild regret. – Robert Sheckley

Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don’t put enough time, don’t give enough emphasis, to contemplation. – Robert McNamara

Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases. – Aleister Crowley

Adam and Eve derived the fullness of joy and bliss from their contemplation of all the animal creatures. – Martin Luther

Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions … – Margaret Deland

All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation. – Susan Sontag

All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. – Kenneth Grahame

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

Amid those scenes of solitude… the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things. – Thomas Cole

An art aims, above all, at producing something beautiful which affects not our feelings but the organ of pure contemplation, our imagination. – Eduard Hanslick

Any situation or offer should be considered from different angles. – Sunday Adelaja

Are you saying you don’t love me?” Hazael asked Liraz. “Because I love you. I think.” He paused in contemplation. “Oh. No. Never mind. That’s fear. – Laini Taylor

Art is about asking questions and engaging a dialog. By challenging or investigating conventions contemporary art helps promote an on-going sense of discovery, contemplation, and understanding. I think these are all important things. – Kim Anderson

Art is contemplation of the world in a state of grace and imaginatively reflecting that subjective understanding. – Hermann Hesse

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

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace. – Hermann Hesse

Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience – the union of life and peace. – George Santayana

As a religious problem, the problem of suffering is, paradoxically, not how to avoid suffering but how to suffer, how to make of physical pain, personal loss, worldly defeat, or the helpless contemplation of others’ agony something bearable, supportable- something as we say, sufferable. – Clifford Geertz

As objects of contemplation, images of the atrocious can answer to several different needs. To steel oneself against weakness. To make oneself more numb. To acknowledge the existence of the incorrigible. – Susan Sontag

Banish, therefore, from thy heart the distractions of earth and turn thine eyes to spiritual joys, that thou mayest learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God. – Albertus Magnus

Be a nice human. – Unknown

Be present in your own presence. Give yourself the gift of your own Self. – Swami Nirmalananda

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

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul. – Wayne Dyer

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate. – Saint Thomas Acquinas

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate. – Thomas Aquinas

Birth and death are the most singular events we experience – and the contemplation of death, as of birth, should be a thing of beauty, not ignobility. – Jacob K. Javits

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind. – Thomas Jefferson

Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world. – Bertrand Russell

Books that talk about ‘contemplation’ often seem to have been written on Jupiter. This one is a sterling exception. – Martin Laird

But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs. – Niklaus Wirth

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in. – Junot Diaz

But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness. – William Shakespeare

But unfortunately Locke treated ideas of reflection as if they were another class of objects of contemplation beside ideas of sensation. – Samuel Alexander

Childhood is only the beautiful and happy time in contemplation and retrospect: to the child it is full of deep sorrows, the meaning of which is unknown. – George Eliot

Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action. – Henri J.M. Nouwen

Christianity is more than just a belief; it is a life of discipline, a firm determination to live a life of prayer and contemplation, a life of self-denial and Christlikeness. – Ramon M. Torres

Close some doors. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere. – Unknown

Close your eyes and stare into the dark. – Cecelia Ahern

Comedy is the kindly contemplation of the incongruous. – P. G. Wodehouse

A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness. – Ambrose Bierce

Concentration is the creation of the instrument; meditation is the right use of it; contemplation transcends it. – Christmas Humphreys

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’ – Unknown

Creative visualization may be described as an extended meditation session that reaches beyond passive contemplation and achieves transformative action. The uses to which it may be applied are limited only by an individual’s imagination. – Aberjhani

Crying has never been an indicator that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive. – Unknown

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant. – Blaise Pascal

Did you ever realize how much your body loves you? It’s always trying to keep you alive. It’s making sure you breathe while you sleep, stops cuts from bleeding, fixes broken bones, finds ways to beat the illnesses that might harm you. Your body literally loves you so much. It’s time you start loving it back. – Unknown

Divine service, being the high contemplation of the mind, is at the same time, and pre-eminently, the peace, the sweetness and blessedness of the heart. – John of Kronstadt

Each human being was given two possibilities: action and contemplation. Both lead to the same place. – Paulo Coelho

Ecstasy is from the contemplation of things vaster than the individual and imperfectly seen perhaps, by all those that still live. – William Butler Yeats

Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of themanly contemplation of the whole. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Enjoying art is a personal matter. It’s made up by contemplation, silence, abstraction. – Renzo Piano

Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation. – Kenneth Rexroth

Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for contemplation forever. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. – Henry David Thoreau

Everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something. – Unknown

Existence was given us for action, rather than indolent and aimless contemplation; our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. They greatly mistake who suppose that God cares for no other pursuit than devotion. – Elias Lyman Magoon

Faith may be relied upon to produce sustained action and, more rarely, sustained contemplation. – Aldous Huxley

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience. – Randolph Bourne

Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song. – Salman Rushdie

For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule. – John Milton

From the first shock of the contemplation of a face depends the principal sensation which guides me throughout the entire execution of a portrait. – Henri Matisse

Furthermore, the apostolic life does not exclude contemplation but encompasses it and profits by it to know better the eternal truths it must proclaim – Vincent de Paul

Gardening is a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; natural and instructive, and as such contributes to the most serious contemplation, experience, health and longevity. – John Evelyn

Give me, kind heaven, a private station, a mind serene for contemplation. – John Gay

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

God deliver me from people who are so spiritual that they want to turn everything into perfect contemplation, come what may. – Teresa of Avila

God has special confidences for each soul. Indeed, it would seem as though the deepest truths came only in moments of profound devotional silence and contemplation. – Charles Brent

Greek philosophers considered sport a religious and civic-in a word, moral-undertaking. Sport, they said, is morally serious because mankind’s noblest aim is the loving contemplation of worthy things, such as beauty and courage. – George Will

Happiness, then, is co-extensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are; not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious. Thus happiness is a form of contemplation. – Aristotle

Hate engenders hate. Hate spreads to nations, and from this cause we have devastating wars. In the contemplation of these wars and their origins there is something humiliating to our human race. No Hymn of Hate can ever be a paean of humanity. – Arthur Alfred Lynch

Have a sense of piety ever on your mind, and be ever mindful that this is subject to no change, but will last you as long as life and support you in death. Elevate your soul by prayer and by contemplation without mystical enthusiasm. – James Boswell

Having once aroused in our mind enough faith in our own will-power to create a universe of contemplation and forget everything else, there are few limitations to the happiness we may enjoy. – John Cowper Powys

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

He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever. – E. Lockhart

Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages. – Unknown

Him that yon soars on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheel̬d throne, the Cherub Contemplation. РJohn Milton

Holidays and vacations can help to balance activity with contemplation, haste with more natural rhythms, noise with the heralding silence of peace. – Pope John Paul II

Hope is the gateway to contemplation, because contemplation is an experience of divine things and we cannot experience what we do not in some way possess. – Thomas Merton

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health! – Henry David Thoreau

How much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter. – Edgar Allan Poe

How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

How you see yourself is a mirror into how you view other people, and that predicts your outcome of your luck with your insight into strangers. – Gayla Leach

Human vision is endowed with the greatest Reality, since it comes to us directly from the contemplation of the Universe. – Robert Delaunay

Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite. – Christian Morgenstern

Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof. – Stephen Leacock

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

I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us, all we ever see of stars are their old photographs. – Alan Moore

I am suggesting that we can and do regain eternity when we are so immersed in life, in moral action, or in aesthetic contemplation, that we completely forget about time and anxiety. – Don Cupitt

I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them. – Vincent van Gogh

I benefit from contemplation, but it’s a great antidote to that, having someone interesting come into the studio environment to be painted, so that I can experience a little bit of their world. – Stuart Pearson Wright

I can recommend nothing better… than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others. – Sir Joshua Reynolds

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

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

I do a lot of reflection. I do. I spend a lot of time in reflection and contemplation. I guess the way the old mystics used to do. I don’t do meditation. That’s not for me. It’s not my thing. – Caroline Myss

I don’t think people understand that you can forgive a person and not allow them back into your life. That is possible, very possible. – Unknown

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

I felt so liberated when I first saw this play, because for me this is the gateway to contemplation, or this is the gateway to love, or this is the gateway to faith, not sitting and reading a book by an isolated monk, god bless him. This is. – Will Oldham

I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words. – bell hooks

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

I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature. – Caspar David Friedrich

I have written the little work that follows . . . in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes. – Anselm of Canterbury

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. – Abraham Lincoln

I just want fiction to remain a vital force for entertainment and not just for contemplation. Both things can exist. – Gary Shteyngart

I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world. – Gustave Flaubert

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures. – Unknown

I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future. – Rainer Maria Rilke

I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth. – Petrarch

I practice Buddhist philosophy and contemplation but I don’t know if I’m more of anything. – Goldie Hawn

I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity. – Honore de Balzac

I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world, in invention to discover the means of fulfilling that will, and in action to do that will by the so-discovered means. – George Bernard Shaw

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

I think that the power of the Silent Minute lies in its inherent lack of external direction: what participants actually do during that minute – prayer, contemplation, focus – is up to them. – Liz Williams

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself. – Rita Mae Brown

I think you need to have the guts to not use comedy. Often, the people that work in comedy use a joke to avoid contemplation. – Steve Coogan

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. – Viktor E. Frankl

I was obliged, at last, to come to the conclusion that the contemplation of nature alone is not sufficient to fill the human heart and mind. – Henry Walter Bates

I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen. – John Steinbeck

I’m having the time of my life figuring out this next move. – John Mayer

Ideas are powerful things, requiring not a studious contemplation but an action, even if it is only an inner action. – Midge Decter

If it ever seems like everyone is arguing with you and no one else maybe its time to contemplate making a change in your own life because you, yourself may be the contributing factor to your angst, only you can change your own situation! – Kels Holstine

If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try. – Seth Godin

If the nature of the world is revealed to man through religion, then gardens, as places for contemplation, should symbolise the perfection of nature. – Tom Turner

If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works. – John Dos Passos

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet… maybe we could understand something. – Federico Fellini

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

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words. – Fran Lebowitz

If you talk about it, you still care about it. – Unknown

If you’re not going to speak up, how is the world supposed to know you exist? – Unknown

Ill health is also a blessing. The flesh and the ego are weakened and contemplation of God becomes easier. – Yogaswami

Immersed in solitude, he would dream or read far into the night. By protracted contemplation of the same thoughts, his mind grew sharp, his vague, undeveloped ideas took on form. – Joris-Karl Huysmans

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

In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God. – John Milton

In contemplation of ruins, one contemplates one’s future, the fragility of the present, and the futility of the past. – Alexander Creswell

In the active life all the vices are first of all to be removed by the practice of good works, so that in the contemplative life a man may, with now purified mental gaze, pass on to the contemplation of the Divine Light. – Isidore of Seville

In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess. – George Santayana

In the martial arts, introspection begets wisdom. Always see contemplation on your actions as an opportunity to improve. – Mas Oyama

In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It’s the place of reflection and contemplation, and it’s the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, to the deep wisdom way. – Angeles Arrien

In the world of thought, there is no truth. Everything is relative, contextual, subject to more and more analysis. – Kumar Anupam

In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the complete facts. – Alfred North Whitehead

In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical. – Plotinus

In this way, if you continue all the time in the way we have described from the beginning, it will become as easy and clear for you to remain in contemplation in your inward and recollected state, as to live in the natural state. – Albertus Magnus

In vocal prayer we go to God on foot. In meditation we go to God on horseback. In contemplation we go to God in a jet. – Fulton J. Sheen

Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation. – Clarence Darrow

Introspect. Dive deep into your own Life and think. Think how have I lived? How can I make my Life better? – Unknown

Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. – Barack Obama

It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs. – Bertrand Russell

It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design. – Charles Caleb Colton

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

It is better to sit in appreciative contemplation of a world in which beauty is eternally supported on a foundation of ugliness: cut out the support, and beauty will sink from sight. – John Steinbeck

It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. – John Calvin

It is good for a student to be poor. Getting and spending, the typical American college student lays waste his powers. Work and contemplation don’t mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation. – Russell Kirk

It is in the contemplation of what you desire that you create what it is you want for yourself – Wayne Dyer

It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. – Victor de Laprade

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 necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation. – Thomas Aquinas

It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it. – Lionel Trilling

It is proper that noble spirits, equipped with truth and enlightened with the Divine intelligence, should arm themselves against dense ignorance by climbing up to the high rock and tower of contemplation. – Giordano Bruno

It is wise to consider a matter carefully before jumping in carelessly. – Nabil Jamal

It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment. – Samuel Alexander

It was the contemplation of God that created men who were equal, for it was in God that they were equal. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It’s just as well that I write in the same facile way wherever I am – no blocks or anguish, no contemplation, no elaborate revision, no need for love-tokens or nice views. – Peter York

It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. – Hugh Laurie

It’s better to know and be disappointed than to never know and always wonder. – Unknown

Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blessed, beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed. – John Mason Neale

Just remember, even your worst days only have twenty-four hours. – Unknown

Know your own Self. Honor your own Self. Find and be who you really are, at the deepest level of your own being. – Nirmalananda

Latins are predisposed to thinking about the past. Catholicism has a lot to do with it because Catholicism is a contemplation of the past, of symbols that are supposed to be eternally present. – Oscar Hijuelos

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others. – Marian Wright Edelman

Leaving behind the false, return to the true: make no discriminations between self and others. In contemplation, one’s mind should be stable and unmoving, like a wall. – Bodhidharma

Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. – Thomas Merton

Let passion devour laziness. – Christopher Poindexter

Let them sleep while you grind. Let them party while you work. The difference will show. – Unknown

Let us not fear our wild thoughts for they can give rise to wondrous contemplation, creative endeavour, life changing ideas, momentous bliss. – Jay Woodman

Let your home be you mast and not your anchor. – Kahlil Gibran

Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is the spirit that is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally. – Fernando Pessoa

Life is too deep for words, so don’t try to describe it, just live it. – C. S. Lewis

Life was not given for indolent contemplation and study of self, nor for brooding over emotions of piety: Actions and actions only determine the worth. – Immanuel Hermann Fichte

Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love. – William Butler Yeats

Love is like some fresh spring, first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless ocean, where restricted natures only find monotony, but where great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation. – Honore de Balzac

Magic comprises the most profound contemplation of the most secret things, their nature, power, quality, substance, and virtues, as well as the knowledge of their whole nature. – Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Making work for me is being in the world, but it’s also being specific about being in the world. I’m interested in this increasingly rare space of contemplation and taking the time and energy to be thoughtful. – Zoe Leonard

An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. – Ambrose Bierce

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

Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to redeem them – Walter Benjamin

Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. – Nikola Tesla

My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place [cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison] taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never, therefore, make any progress. – Anwar Sadat

My dear, you’ve missed so many opportunities to say nothing. – Unknown

My life will always have dirty dishes. If this sink can become a place of contemplation, let me learn constancy here. – Gunilla Brodde Norris

Nature I’ll court in her sequester’d haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell; Where the pois’d lark his evening ditty chants, And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell. – Tobias Smollett

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. – Earl Nightingale

No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art. – T. S. Eliot

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor. – Saint Augustine

No person whose entire time is spent in the contemplation of limitation can demonstrate freedom from such limitation. – Ernest Holmes

No prince, no success filled her dreams: only time spread out before her to spend as she chose, a time of contemplation which offered her refuge. – Delphine de Vigan

No reason to stay is a good reason to go. – Unknown

No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram. – Alfred North Whitehead

Nobody made a greater mistake than the one who did nothing because he could only do a little. – Unknown

Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I’ve ever wanted. – David Shields

Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of Nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

O admirable necessity! O powerful action! What mind can penetrate your nature? What language can express this marvel? None, to be sure. This is where human discourse turns toward the contemplation of the divine. – Leonardo da Vinci

Of the twenty-four hours a day, Use six for earning and spending, six for contemplation of God, six of sleep and six for service to others. – Sathya Sai Baba

One can hardly imagine a more healthful employment, or one more favorable to contemplation and the observation of nature. – Henry David Thoreau

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

One hour of contemplation surpasses sixty years of worship. – Elijah Muhammad

One should turn towards the main ocean of the-beautiful-in-the-world so that one may by, contemplation of this Form, bring forth in all their splendor many fair fruits of discourse and meditation in a plenteous crop of philosophy. – Plato

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

Our greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. – William James

Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life. – John Cowper Powys

Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature’s grandeur, before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man. – Heinrich Heine

Our very contract with nature has a deep restorative power; contemplation of its magnificence imparts peace and serenity. – Pope John Paul II

Paris strikes the vulgar part of us infinitely the most, but to a thinking mind London is incomparably the most delightful subject for contemplation. – Samuel Rogers

People who have read a good deal rarely make great discoveries. I do not say this in excuse of laziness, but because invention presupposes an extensive independent contemplation of things. – Georg C. Lichtenberg

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation. – Clare of Assisi

Politicians are addicted to spending and revenue extraction. As with an addict, there’s little pause for moral or legal contemplation. – David Malpass

Prayer can assume very different forms, from quiet, blessed contemplation of God, in which eye meets eye in restful meditation, to deep sighs or sudden exclamations of wonder, joy, gratitude or adoration. – Ole Hallesby

Pure Spirit, one hundred degrees proof – that’s a drink that only the most hardened contemplation-guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work. – Aldous Huxley

Recitation of the Qur’an without contemplation and thought is futile. – Ali ibn Abi Talib

Recovery is ignoring the need to be perfect. – Unknown

Reflection is the process of stepping back from an experience to ponder, carefully and persistently, it’s meaning to the self through the development of inferences. – Unknown

Reformation ends not in contemplation, but in action. – George Gillespie

Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition. – Josef Pieper

Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth. – Unknown

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion. – Liberty Hyde Bailey

Seek by reading and you will find by meditating. Knock by praying, and it will be opened to you in contemplation. – John of the Cross

Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit. – Henry Ward Beecher

Self-contemplation is infallibly the symptom of disease. – Thomas Carlyle

Self-recognition, the self-contemplation of spirit is the primary movement out of which all creativeness proceeds. – Paul Twitchell

Silence is not always saying yes to anything, it is just a perfect way of thinking what to do next. – Unknown

Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound. It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation. Life without silence is life without privacy. The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts. Silence is on the side of sanity. – Norman Cousins

So in life, some enter the services of fame and others money, but the best choice is that of those few who spend their time in the contemplation of nature, and as lovers of wisdom. – Pythagoras

So take the time to think. Discover your real reason for being here and then have the courage to act on it. – Robin S.

Society develops wit, but its contemplation alone forms genius. – Madame de Stael

Some are slaves of ambition or money, but others are interested in understanding life itself. These give themselves the name of philosophers , and they value the contemplation and discovery of nature beyond all other pursuits. – Pythagoras

Sometimes it is best to step back and observe the situation from outside. Renouncing action does not mean defeat it is a sign of great wisdom and maturity. – Anurag Prakash Ray

Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem. – Jonathan Mead

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. – Jean Arp

Speak or act with an impure mind. And trouble will follow you… Speak or act with a pure mind. And happiness will follow you. – DHAMMAPADA

Spirituality will take you like love; it seduces you from contemplation to completeness. – Bryant McGill

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Teach correctly… Find delight in contemplation. – Saint Augustine

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

That which a man acquires by contemplation he should spend in love. – Meister Eckhart

The act of contemplation then creates the thing created. – Isaac D’Israeli

The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory. – Viktor E. Frankl

The animal has its happiness in the senses, the human beings in their intellect, and the gods in spiritual contemplation. It is only to the soul that has attained to this contemplative state that the world really becomes beautiful. – Swami Vivekananda

The birds are the saints, who fly to heaven on the wings of contemplation, who are so removed from the world that they have no business on earth. They do not labour, but by contemplation alone they already live in heaven. – Anthony of Padua

The Britons (say historians) were naked, civilized men, learned, studious, abstruse in thought and contemplation; naked, simple, plain in their acts and manners; wiser than after ages. – William Blake

The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings. – Plato

The contemplation of beauty in nature, in art, in literature, in human character, diffuses through our being a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart’s anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away. – Edwin Percy Whipple

The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation (…)The road to this paradise was not as comfortable and alluring as the road to the religious paradise; but it has shown itself reliable, and I have never regretted having chosen it. – Albert Einstein

the contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation – Albert Einstein

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires. – William Hazlitt

The dark is a quiet place. Reflection and contemplation are the only things to do in it. Well that, and imagine the worst things possible. – Tara Brown

The difference between a loser and winner is that while a loser ponders about his loss a winner tries to improve himself. – Hermann J Steinherr

The eye and soul are caressed in the contemplation of form and colour. The subtle changes of colour over a surface – transitions that are like music – are intangible in their reaction upon us. There is an immediate sensuous appeal! – John F. Carlson

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. – Oscar Wilde

The fact that someone else loves you doesn’t rescue you from the project of loving yourself. – Sahaj Kohli

The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation. – Simone Weil

The first great thing is to find yourself and for that you need solitude and contemplation – at least sometimes. I can tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places. – Fridtjof Nansen

The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life. – David Hume

The fly that touches honey cannot use it’s wings; so too the soul that clings to spiritual sweetness ruins it’s freedom and hinders contemplation. – Sri Aurobindo

The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation. – Geoffrey Elton

The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation. – James Monroe

The greatest gift you can give someone is your time. Because when you give your time. You are giving a portion of your life that you will never get back. – Unknown

The greatness of contemplation can be given to none but those who love. – Pope Gregory I

The greatness of poetry comes from its struggle to express the rapture of the soul in the contemplation of beauty. – Anthony S. Maulucci

The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love.” Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act of cognition, in seeing, in intuition, in contemplation. – Josef Pieper

The height of devotion is reached when reverence and contemplation produce passionate worship, which in turn breaks forth in thanksgiving and praise in word and song. – R. Kent Hughes

The initial step for us all to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature. – Irenaeus of Lyons

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way. – A. C. Benson

The law of flying was not discovered by the contemplation of things staying on the ground. – Wayne Dyer

The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action. – M. Scott Peck

The man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman. – Ananda Coomaraswamy

The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own existence. – Augustine Birrell

The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment. – Douglas Preston

The mind grows sicker than the body in contemplation of it’s suffering. – Ovid

The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice. – Quintilian

The mistake we make is to look for a source of comfort in ourselves: self-contemplation, instead of gazing upon God. In other words, we look for comfort precisely where comfort never can be. – Frederick William Robertson

The moment you feel like you have to prove your worth to someone is the moment to absolutely and utterly walk away. – Alysia Harris

The more time you spend contemplating what you should have done, you lose valuable time planning what you can and will do. – Rose Big

The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you. – Stephanie Perkins

the most deeply moving element in the contemplation of beauty is the element of loss. We desire to hold; but the sunset melts into the night, and the secret of the painting on the wall can never be the secret of the buyer. – Pamela Hansford Johnson

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

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

The notion of education through handicrafts rises from the contemplation of truth and love permeating life’s activities. – Mahatma Gandhi

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live only as you can. – Unknown

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry. – Kathleen Norris

The person who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet. – Mohadesa Najumi

The 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 Allen Poe

The proper Science and Subject for Man’s Contemplation is Man himself. – Pierre Charron

The senses are of the earth, the reason stands apart from them in contemplation. – Leonardo da Vinci

The serenity produced by the contemplation and philosophy of nature is the only remedy for prejudice, superstition, and inordinate self-importance, teaching us that we are all a part of Nature herself, strengthening the bond of sympathy which should exist between ourselves and our brother man. . . – Luther Burbank

The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. – Thucydides

The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation. – Josef Pieper

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival. – Aristotle

The universe, that vast assemblage of every thing that exists, presents only matter and motion: the whole offers to our contemplation, nothing but an immense, an uninterrupted succession of causes and effects. – Baron d’Holbach

The upheaval of our world and the upheaval in consciousness is one and the same. Everything becomes relative and therefore doubtful. And while man, hesitant and questioning, contemplates… his spirit yearns for an answer that will allay the turmoil of doubt and uncertainty. – Carl Gustav Jung

The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from theconnection of things, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The way of nothingness is the way of Zen. It is just a term. The contemplation of nothingness or everythingness is where everything starts. – Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell

The wider our contemplation of creation, the grander is our conception of God. – Cyril of Jerusalem

The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible. – Gabriel Marcel

The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead. – Bertrand Russell

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. – Jacob Bronowski

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. . . . The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. – J. Bronowski

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. – Diane Arbus

Then Leonardo made a very bid decision. – Mo Willems

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man. – Albert Camus

There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful arrangement. – Arthur Phillips

There are five stages of meditation, each one leading gradually into the next: concentration, meditation, contemplation, illumination, and inspiration. – Benjamin Creme

There are no short cuts to any place worth going. – Unknown

There are two kinds of reading, reading which is contemplation – even a kind of vision & reading for information. For the first only the best will do, for the rest – then one can let in anything one would like to read in the world. – Mary Butts

There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them. – Charles Baudelaire

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

There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is no art without contemplation. – Robert Henri

There is no contemplation without art. – Vittorio Canta

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

There is something in the ardour and ingenousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. – Ann Radcliffe

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life. – Lin Yutang

They who have received some portion of God’s gift, these, if judged by their deeds, have from death’s bond won their release; for they embrace in their own mind, all things, things on the earth, things in the heaven, and things above the heaven – if there be aught. They who do not understand, because they possess the aid of reason only and not mind, are ignorant wherefore they have come into being and whereby, like irrational creatures, their makeup is in their feelings and their impulses, they fail in all appreciation of things which really are worth contemplation. These center all their thought upon the pleasures of the body and its appetites. – Muata Ashby

Think of why you started. – Unknown

This Ariyan Eightfold Path, that is to say: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right contemplation. – Gautama Buddha

Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. – Rachel Carson

To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation. – Isaac Newton

To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. – George Spencer-Brown

To believe a thing is to see the cool crystal water sparkling in the cup. But to meditate on it is to drink of it. Reading gathers the clusters; contemplation squeezes forth their generous juice. – Charles Spurgeon

To broaden one’s prospective is to push back the swirling winds of ignorance. – Joel T. McGrath

To contemplation’s sober eye, Such is the race of man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began, Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life’s little day. – Thomas Gray

To Contemplation’s sober eye. Such is the race of Man. – Thomas Gray

To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them. – Friedrich Nietzsche

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations – such is pleasure beyond compare. – Yoshida Kenko

Trees are good for contemplation: Plato and Aristotle did their best thinking in the groves of olives and figs around Athens, and Buddha found enlightenment beneath a peepul tree. – Colin Tudge

True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques. – Thomas Merton

True contemplation is reflecting on the blessings of God in your life. – Harold Klemp

True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue. – Martin Luther

True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and through them, all the rest. – Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were he to live the age of the rocks – love, and the contemplation of the Deity. – Isaac Watts

Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to contemplate what’s working and what’s not, so that we can make changes for the better. – Sarah Ban Breathnach

Vice: Whatever was passion in the contemplation of man, being brought forth by his will into action. – James Harrington

We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of action. – Pope Gregory I

We have to understand that the world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye … The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. – Jacob Bronowski

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

We have within us the power to uplift ourselves. This power is our own awareness. – Swami Shankarananda

We must not imitate the externals of nature with so much fidelity that the picture fails to evoke that wonderful teasing recurrence of emotion that marks the contemplation of a work of art. – John F. Carlson

We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads. – John Lancaster Spalding

We skim over the surface thoughtlessly. But we must acknowledge that thinking well is a time-consuming process. We can’t expect instant results. We have to slow down a bit, and take the time to contemplate, meditate, and even pray. It is the only route to a more meaningful and efficient existence. – M Scott Peck

We want a state wise in its contemplation – just in its actions – and moderate in the reach of government into our lives. – Sonny Perdue

We’re certainly not perfect, and we’re not probably even better than anybody else, except that perhaps we are given to certain kinds of contemplation that provide a valuable balance to the knee-jerk reactionary behavior of most of our newspapers and political leaders. Poets are great doubters. – Sam Hamill

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

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love. – Meister Eckhart

What a school of politeness is such a contemplation of the past! To take everything objectively, to be angry at nothing, to love nothing, to understand everything– makes one gentle and pliable. – Friedrich Nietzsche

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

What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua-that’s the only name I can think of for it-like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. – Robert M. Pirsig

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breast-pin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone. – William Gilmore Simms

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. – Meister Eckhart

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation. – William Shakespeare

When I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional – a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful. – Bill Viola

When you are in doubt, wait. Fall back on the contemplation of your vision, and increase your faith and purpose. And by all means, in times of doubt and indecision, cultivate gratitude. – Wallace D. Wattles

When you sit still and begin to look within, you find your inner bliss. When you follow your inner bliss, you follow your path to joy. – Ryoko

When you throw dirt, you lose ground. – Unknown

Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the distant song of an insect, lost in contemplation of the flavours to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance. – Junichiro Tanizaki

Whenever you procrastinate, you’re just being a dick to your future self. – Tim Canfield

While you have a future do not live too much in contemplation of your past: unless you are content to walk backward the mirror is a poor guide. – Ambrose Bierce

Whoever wishes to hold the fortress of contemplation must first of all train in the camp of action. – Pope Gregory I

Why? Because some people are just terrible human beings, and terrible people do terrible things. If you’re racking your brain trying to understand it, it just means you’re not one of those terrible people. – Unknown

Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss, it was eternity. – George Orwell

Wisdom requires not only the investigation of many things, but contemplation of the mystery. – Jeremy Narby

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

With passions stilled and one’s nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure. – Wu Cheng’en

Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Woman … is the divine object, violated, endlessly sacrificed yet always reborn, whose only joy, achieved through a subtle interplay of images, lies in contemplation of herself. – Anne Desclos

Woman, nude, is the blue sky. Clouds and garments are an obstacle to contemplation. Beauty and infinity would be gazed upon unveiled. – Victor Hugo

Words are very powerful and can lead anyone reading them or hearing them, into contemplation and insight. How the mind follows suit is rarely palpable or expected. This impact is not a matter of metaphysical effects nor of an unexplainable phenomenon. It’s simply part of being human. – David Mitchell

Work without contemplation is never enough. – Douglas V. Steere

Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation. – Herbert Read

Worship is adoring contemplation of God. – R. A. Torrey

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation. – Salman Rushdie

Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind. – Gore Vidal

Yesterday for contemplation, today for action. – James Burgh

Yoga is an inner process, which makes it a solitary venture, yet it works better when you have external support. – Swami Nirmalananda

You are purer than the pure. Never manifold, you are individual Consciousness. Unborn, unchanging, all-pervasive… You are a mountain of joy. – Swami Muktananda

You aren’t fat. You have fat. Fat does not define you. – Unknown

You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move on. – Unknown

You cant give away your riches if you keep thinking about the hard time you underwent acquiring it. – Hermann J Steinherr

You choose to shine with the light of your own divinity, or you hide it with the shadows you create in your mind.

You know, Monsieur, that, although the contemplative life is more perfect than the active life, it is not, however, more so than one which embraces at the same time contemplation and action, as does yours, by God’s grace. – Vincent de Paul

You must choose where to live -in the light or the shadows. The most powerful tool you have is your power of choice. – Swami Nirmalananda

You should live in a manner that should enable you to devote time to writing and contemplation. As is often said, the writer is at work even when he is simply looking out the window. – F. Sionil Jose

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Your mind makes you dance like a monkey all the time… Now you have to become stronger; you have to make the mind dance. Make it dance on the stage of mantra. For that, mediate and repeat mantra. – Swami Muktananda

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this, it has no power over you. – Unknown

Your worst battle is between what you know and what you feel. – Unknown

You’re a diamond, dear. They can’t break you. – Unknown

Zazen is seated meditation-the opposite of contemplation-the emptying of the mind of all thoughts in order simply to be. In the midst of all evil, not a thought is aroused in the mind-this is called za. Seeing into one’s Self-nature, not being moved at all-this is called Zen. – Huineng

[S]torytelling, in ancient and modern practice, is always a contemplation of the experience of time passing. A story depends on things not standing still, on the built-in condition of impermanence. – Joan Silber

[To Aquinas] the senses are what we have in common with dumb animals. … Our better part [is] the mind … and [its] intellectual contemplation. – Anthony John Patrick Kenny

‘No’ might make them angry. But. It will make you free. – if no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger. – Unknown

“The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And concerning the inner man, it consists of nothing but contemplation. Therefore the kingdom of heaven must be contemplation. – Basil of Caesarea

About the twelfth century the possibility of sharing contemplation by means of preaching and other forms of apostolic activity began to be considered. This point of view was exemplified in the mixed life (contemplative and active) of the mendicant orders and was expressed in the formula: contemplata aliis tradere (“to transmit to others the fruits of contemplation”). – Gustavo Gutiérrez

Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 133.

• The act of contemplation then creates the thing contemplated.
  • Isaac D’Israeli, Literary Character, Chapter XII.

• But first and chiefest, with thee bring
  Him that yon soars on golden wing,
  Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
  The Cherub Contemplation.
  • John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 51.

• In discourse more sweet,
  (For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the sense,)
  Others apart sat on a hill retir’d,
  In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
  Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,
  Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
  And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.
  • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 555.

• When holy and devout religious men
  Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence;
  So sweet is zealous contemplation.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act III, scene 7, line 92.

• Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under his advanced plumes.
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act II, scene 5, line 35.