Quotes About Contemplation

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

I go up to my room, close the door and sit on my bed, my hands clasped in my lap, and in my chest is a raggedy sadness. Outside, the sun hangs at the horizon, then drops. Day is done. (page 60)

I can be with someone and everything is fine and then all of a sudden it can wash over me like a sickness, that I need the quiet of my own self. I need to unload my head and look at what I've got in there so far. See it. Think what it means. I always need to come back to being alone for awhile.

I sit in some long grass, watch for a while to see if I can find some ants working. The thing about watching ants is, you see some order and elegance to the whole works. And also is it a time of you wondering who is higher, really. But

welcome antidote to the speed of modern life. By their very nature, letters allow for more consideration of the words and thoughts that someone is offering you, in part because they prevent interruption.

Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say Oh look! Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.

The happy passive nature, locked up with itself like a mirror in an airy room, reflects what goes on but demands not to be approached.

I dropped my head into my arms. I could hear the sea vibrating, the tiny hiss of displaced sand and the click of stones. If I lay still and quiet enough, I thought, I could melt into this elemental world of sun, water and wide, open horizon.

The best beauty treatment of all is time spent quietly before the Lord.

Whatsoever things are true...think on these things.

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.

Take me someplace where we can be silent together.

As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift-or curse, perhaps-of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we're just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.

The other day a monk told me, 'The resting place of the mind is the heart. The only thing the mind hears all day is clanging bells and noise and argument, and all it wants is quietude. The only place the mind will ever find peace is inside the silence of the heart. That's where you need to go.

Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?

Hush," she said. "I'm thinking at the top of my lungs.

There were pages and pages of this. It was a confetti of thinking. It began nowhere, led to nothing, and concluded nothing.

sometimes you count the days, sometimes you weigh them. a

Not everything has an answer." Alma found this to be such a staggering piece of intelligence that she was struck dumb by it for several hours. All she could do was sit and ponder the notion in an amazed stupor.

The continent did not appeal: France was filled with irritating people; Spain was corrupt and unstable; Russia, impossible; Italy, absurd; Germany, rigid; Portugal, in decline. Holland, thought favorably disposed toward him, was dull. The United States of America, he decided, was a possibility.

I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent—and working at a pace so slow—that I would be able to hear myself living.

I climbed the stairs to my apartment, lay down in my new bed and turned off the light. I waited to start crying or worrying

you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.