Quotes About Contemplation

He lived alone, in a small house full of books, and did nothing all day except read and think—a most dangerous occupation for a man, which in my experience leads invariably to dyspepsia and melancholy

He glanced around the reading room and closed his eyes, trying to keep hold of the past for a minute longer, a fattening and hungover middle-aged historian in a black corduroy suit.

What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?

Sleepless, I stare from the dark hospital room at shadows of a flower and its leaves the nightlight fixes like a blotto on the corridor wall.

On the whole, he seems to have used the notebook, and the quiet hours of recording, as a way of conversing with himself – a means of clarification of his own thoughts.

Respond to demands with silence, respond to challenges with questions.

My Lady has been thinking? My Lady must have a headache from all that effort.

Thom smiled back almost as unsteadily; he looked as if he was contemplating a leap from the window.

Lan had begun an intense study of the contents of his pipe's bowl.

Concentrate on a single flame and feed all your passions into it—fear, hate, anger—until your mind became empty.

He liked being able to think things through. It was easy to hurt people without meaning to when you were hasty.

If we let ourselves get lost in the shuffle of daily life, as we hurry along we end up knowing more about our shoes from looking down than about the stars—or life's unseen possibilities—from pausing for a few moments here and there to gaze upward and beyond … and adjust our course accordingly. My

But reflection without action is ultimately as unproductive as action without reflection.

Reflection = Progress

unexplained pauses

So often we read through the scriptures—day in and day out, week after week and month after month, from start to finish—and seldom take the time to step back, ponder and reflect on the larger themes and doctrinal refrains that work their way through the scriptures and the history of the Church.

because yes – he likes to 'write' – but to 'do' – to do a particular thing – perhaps on paper (perhaps on canvas – perhaps in stone – perhaps, perhaps in a musical score) – a thing that will stand, a thing that will bear (that will sustain) repeated contemplation: a thing that will sustain long contemplation, and that will (in a 'deep' enough way) reward the beholder.

Summer nights held a special kind of loneliness that gave rise to strange imaginings. One walked the beach alone and thought too much.

warmed by the cold sea around him.

martinis, steak, and red wine, a proven formula for deep thinking

In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty...

This forest silence improves anyone.

To all appearances he was just drifting. In actuality he was just drifting.

When cleaning I do it the way people go to church—not so much to discover anything new, although I'm alert for new things, but mainly to reacquaint myself with the familiar. It's nice to go over familiar paths.