Quotes About Contemplation

iii. that if you were suddenly lifted up and could see life and its variety from a vast height, and at the same time all the things around you, in the sky and beyond it, you'd see how pointless it is. And no matter how often you saw it, it would be the same: the same life forms, the same life span. Arrogance … about this?

Look at the universe of which you are a part. Realize that you exist within its constant flux, that your days are numbered, and that if you don't clear the clouds from your mind now, you may never have another chance.

Considerando que é possível tu deixares esta vida a qualquer momento, administra cada ato, palavra e pensamento em consonância com isso.

To this end there must be continual self-examination. "If thou may not continually gather thyself together, namely sometimes do it, at least once a day, the morning or the evening. In the morning purpose, in the evening discuss the manner, what thou hast been this day, in word, work, and thought.

Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?' 'But this is more pleasant.

Consider each individual thing you do and ask yourself whether to lose it through death makes death itself any cause for fear.

You can strip away many unnecessary troubles which lie wholly in your own judgement. And you will immediately make large and wide room for yourself by grasping the whole universe in your thought, contemplating the eternity of time, and reflecting on the rapid change of each thing in every part. How brief the gap from birth to dissolution, how vast the gulf of time before your birth, and an equal infinity after your dissolution.

38. Look into their minds, at what the wise do and what they don't.

Spend not the remnant of thy days in thoughts and fancies concerning other men

How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them; what is the nature of all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapoury fame; how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they are—all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe. To

In a little while you too will close your eyes, and soon there will be others mourning the man who buries you.

16. The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts. Color it with a run of thoughts like these:

Medita en los principios rectores de otros[260], de qué huyen y qué persiguen.

29. Examine cada um dos seus atos, separadamente, e pergunte a si mesmo se a morte deve ser temida por lhe privar de tal ação.

Call to mind how long you deffer these things, and how many times you have received from the Gods grace of the appointed day and you do not use it. Yet now, if never before, you should realize what Universe you are a part of, and as an emanation from what Controller of that Universe you subsist; and that a limit has been set to your time, which if you do not use it to let daylight into your soul, it will be gone and never again shall the chance be yours.

Look within. Within is the fountain of Good, ready always to well forth if thou wilt alway delve.

Such as thy thoughts and ordinary cogitations are, such will thy mind be in time. For the soul doth as it were receive its tincture from the fancies, and imaginations.

Auf die Dauer der Zeit nimmt die Seele die Farbe der Gedanken an.

We ought not to think only upon the fact that our life each day is waning away, what is left of it being ever less, but this also should be a subject for thought

Fritter not away what is left of thy life in thoughts about others, unless thou canst bring these thoughts into

For verily thou dost hereby cut thyself off from other work, that is, by thinking what so and so is doing and why, what he is saying, having what in mind, contriving what, and all the many like things such as whirl thee aside from keeping close watch over thine own ruling Reason.

For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul

Many such things will strike him, things not credible to the many, but which come to him alone who is truly familiar with the works of Nature and near to her own heart.

we must not think as all men think, but only as those who live a life accordant with nature. As for those who live otherwise, he remembers always how they act at home and abroad, by night and by day, and how and with whom they are found in company. And so he cannot esteem the praise of such, for they enjoy not their own approbation.