Quotes About Contemplation

With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain

The supper of the heart is when the guest has gone. - Letters 1857 to Dr and Mrs Holland pg 171

Was dying as he thought, or different; Was it a pleasant day to die, And did the sunshine face his way?

Pero con quien cavila mientras el resto no deja de parlotear, con esta persona soy cautelosa. Temo que sea una gran persona.

First of all, it's impossible not to compare. When you go down a fork in a road, it's impossible not to think about that other path. Wonder what your life could have been like…

Being around people didn't make me uneasy, I just preferred to be alone most of the time.

Please, he added. I meant to say, please. I've thought it all through. I've thought of nothing else. I haven't read a book in weeks!

That silence you heard, when you tried to pray — that's the sound of God listening.

It requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

Radomosity, thought Artemis. And he felt like weeping.

pair of you. Might I remind you, that you

You become what you give your attention to.

He who exercises wisdom, exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be daily before your eyes; but most of all death: and you will never think of anything mean nor will you desire anything extravagantly.

Remind yourself that what you love is mortal … at the very moment you are taking joy in something, present yourself with the opposite impressions. What harm is it, just when you are kissing your little child, to say: Tomorrow you will die, or to your friend similarly: Tomorrow one of us will go away, and we shall not see one another any more?

Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, and understanding, and a manner of life that is in harmony with herself. See then that ye die not without being spectators of these things.

So decide now that you are worthy of living as a full-grown man who is making progress, and make everything that seems best be a law that you cannot go against. And if you meet with any hardship or anything pleasant or reputable or disreputable, then remember that the contest is now and the Olympic games are now and you cannot put things off any more and that your progress is made or destroyed by a single day and a single action

But God has introduced man to be a spectator of God and of his works; and not only a spectator of them, but an interpreter. For this reason it is shameful for man to begin and to end where irrational animals do; but rather he ought to begin where they begin, and to end where nature ends in us; and nature ends in contemplation and understanding, and in a way of life conformable to nature. Take care then not to die without having been spectators of these things.

sophistical questions, so we ought to exercise ourselves

Here is the primary means of training yourself: as soon as you leave in the morning, subject whatever you see or hear to close study. Then formulate answers as if they were posing questions.

Continually remind yourself that you are a mortal being, and someday will die.

ask yourself how Socrates or Zeno

I find that in contemplating the natural world my pleasure is greater if there are not too many others contemplating it with me, at the same time. —Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

And then I'm gonna step right into the wilderness. Just live on berries and shit. Not bother anybody. Not hurt anything. Something I have to do, man.