Quotes About Contemplation

Waterboarding is slow-motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of blackout and expiration. Usually, the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch. If it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia - meaning, the loss of all oxygen to the cells.

I don't really go out at night in terms of noisy, busy places; I prefer more of a quiet corner somewhere.

Seriously, these days I tend to shut up in terms of external analysis and DO try to let things speak for themselves, while still trying to get some depth into them.

I enjoy passing time in my house. I'll get up, head out on the terrace, think about what to do, fool around oiling the floorboards or hanging pictures askew.

There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.

As people, right now, we're so over-stimulated in this world that I don't know what I'd do in Wyoming. I really don't know what I'd do. I would probably have a heart attack because I'd be so lonely, and I'd actually have to listen to myself think. That's a terrifying prospect for myself, and I'm sure many other people as well.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

Lincoln had no such person that he could talk with. Often, as a result, he debated with himself, and he would draw up a kind of list of the pros and cons of an argument, and carefully figure them out, and he might test them in public.

It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

We look up, if only to see if we're likely to be rained on. The sky calls attention to itself, whether scored by herons, cranes, or wires; illumined by sunsets, Perseids, or ballparks; broken up by the twigwork of oaks or maples, painted in rainbows, or just primed in the pale gray of my '52 Ford. If we are truthful, the sky is never neutral.

...How sublime Upon a time-blanch'd cliff to muse, and, while The eagle glories in a sea of air, To mingle with the scene around!—Survey The sun-warm heaven...

Beneath our feet a fairy pathway flows, The grass still glitters in the summer breeze, The dusky wood, and distant copse appear, And that lone stream, upon whose chequer'd face We mused, when noon-rays made the pebbles gleam, Is mirror'd to the mind: though all around Be rattling hoofs and roaring wheels, the eye Is wand'ring where the heart delights to dwell.

if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars")

He wondered if you were supposed to pray while naked in the shower, but figured what the hell and pressed his wet hands together.

A wise man listens when he has no words to speak.

of all the things in the world to see, I reckon the heavens at sundown has got to be my favorite sight. How about you?" "The sky's a good place to look," he said. "And I got a notion it's a good place to go.

There is room for words on subjects other than last words.

The little things gather for a long time, but one morning you look in the mirror and you understand them in a flash.

And nothing . . . disquiets a rationalist more than a forest.

Spiritual asphyxia menaces he who does not practice some form of prayer; he who practices it receives vivifying benediction in some form.

There was a lot of joy to be had in the contemplation of a pint glass; in terms of plain reality of course, there was a deal more to be had in the draining of one.

Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning

When we find the entry into this large stillness, our lives are irrevocably changed because at that moment a monumental transition takes place: we find that the center of the universe shifts from our self-interests, even our spiritual self-interests, to the larger world, even to the cosmos, which we now begin to perceive as a spiritual reality.