Quotes About Contemplation

Philosophy begins in wonder. And at the end when philosophic thought has done its best the wonder remains.

Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness.

Now, if God made the clouds so beautiful, did He not mean us to gaze upon them and be thankful for them?

In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious.

The world was forgotten there; and not the world merely, but the memory of it. Everything faded out. The soul turned inwards upon itself.

I have to have time to think. Why does time run on while a man thinks?

Silence is one of the gates to wisdom.

Time will come when one's safety lies in ten things: nine of which are in staying aloof from men, and the tenth in staying silent.

Silence is a door among the doors of wisdom - indeed, silence begets and attracts love, it is the proof of all the beneficiences.

The wiser a man is, the less talkative will he be.

Recitation of the Qur'an without contemplation and thought is futile.

Silence is the garden of thought.

Or perhaps it is just that George has spent proper time looking at this one painting and that every single experience of looking at something would be this good if she devoted time to everything she looked at.

I went outside mournful, and I hit pure air.

She came right up to the side of the building as if she were coming round its corner and simply sort of reading the sign because that's what she was, a girl reading the world.

Looking in the mirror suddenly she thinks that we all know our dates of birth but that every year there is another date that we pass over without knowing what it is but it is just as important it is the other date the death date.

ARAH lay on a quilt under a tree. The darkness was all around her, but through the branches she could see one bright star. It was comfortable to look at.

Silence is so steadfast, you know. It is so ample, after all.

One of the less savory notions of the early Church was that of the abominable fancy, the idea that part of the joy of the saved lay in contemplating the tortures of the damned.

His eyes went again to the crucifix above his head, reflected in the mirror. The strained arms, the arched spine. All that effort to open the gates of heaven for us and we (he thought) probably spend our first hours among the heavenly hosts settling old scores with relatives.

I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

She sits in her usual ample armchair, with piles of books and unopened magazines around her. She sips cautiously from the mug of weak herb tea which is now her substitute for coffee. At one time she thought that she could not live without coffee, but it turned out that it is really the warm large mug she wants in her hands, that is the aid to thought or whatever it is she practices through the procession of hours, or of days.

I did not do those things; I only watched, watched myself act, react.