Quotes About Contemplation

Quelli con il pelo sullo stomaco che pensano a lungo prima di addormentarsi non riescono mai a essere cattivi.

Father Day, I feel and realize not that since my all the Days are for others; what establishes only this one Day? -

Nothing to do is itself a great doing.

Thoughts are the constitution of life, and the mind is the parliament where these take place.

A wise man who cultivates wisdom may sometimes drown in it.

Those who love seek a philosophy and, because of this, are fond of solitude.

It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be.

Thinking is painful business.

Still waters run deep.

What is it about the January feeling— past everything else, low-glowing hunger that propels me around

At the beginning of every winter people are careful to install storm windows. These extra panes of glass protect their houses against the bitter winds. We do something very similar to protect our minds through the practice of meditation.

When we look at the lives of the great mystics, however, we find ready proof that turning inward does not mean turning away from life.

We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience." —John Dewey

But what the hell, I told myself, it wasn't as if I were one of them or even competing with them, for heaven's sake, I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life. The scientist dropping into the zoo at feeding time. That is what I told myself.

When passing a certain field near the railroad tracks John Allen Cooke, a black former truck driver, often points to it saying: "This is where I used to see Elvis laying around. Killing time. He was real quiet. Thinking about his music, I guess...

I think it is the first proof of a stable mind to be able to pause and spend time with oneself.

Yet another form of rest, perhaps the most essential, is "transcendence" – rising above it all, usually in the form of meditation, contemplation, or prayer. At least some of your transcendent time should be aimed at taking you out of all ordinary thinking, into pure consciousness, pure being, pure unity, or oneness with God.

The best service a book can render you is not to impart truth, but to make you think it out for yourself.

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading.

Where is it written that lives should have a meaning?

Por qué te ha gustado? —le preguntó Nino. —Todavía no sé si me ha gustado. —Pero te ha intrigado. —Me ha hecho pensar. [...]

reason, by a weariness that made everything around

What was I like, really?

dull things of every day, she was afraid of the silence of