Quotes About Contemplation

Una cosa es interesante porque pensamos en ella, no porque sea nueva.

And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of being new.

Poate ca rugaciunea nici nu este altceva, atunci cand ceremonialul si teologia sunt lasate departe: o nemiscare sobra, in care omul isi vorbeste, aproape in tacere, siesi.

Poate ca rugaciunea nici nu este altceva, atunci cand ceremonialul si teologia sunt lasate deoparte: o nemiscare sobra, in care omul isi vorbeste, aproape in tacere, siesi.

It was easy to be clever, but hard to look into the face of God, who is found not so much by cleverness as by stillness.

her parents had few friends, avoided social engagement, were awkward when they couldn't avoid it, and spent most of their time reading, playing music, doing punishing exercise, or, like crazy Zen monks, sitting for hours in the garden or on the terrace doing absolutely nothing.

There are times for sleep, for inactivity, dreaming, indiscipline, even lethargy. You'll know when you deserve these times. They come after you've been broken. I'm speaking of a helpless, tranquil state before the great excitement of dawn.

Supongo que en la vida hay algunas cosas que no podemos explicar y otras en las que es mejor no pensar.

The inner life of any great thing will be incomprehensible to me until I develop and deepen an inner life of my own.

Robert calmly, like an Oriental sage himself, treated the situation as if it were a koan, a riddle to be entered until its very assumptions shifted.

Live slow enough and there is only the beginning of time.

Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.

She bade solitude good-bye. Good-bye to no schedule but whim; good-bye to her life among no things but her own and each always in place; good-bye to no real meals, good-bye free thought. The whole fat flock of them flapped away. But what was solitude for if not to foster decency? Her solitude always held open house. when was the last time anyone needed her? She was eager to do it, whatever it was.

Look upstream. Just simply turn around; have you no will?

explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover at least where it is that we have been so startlingly set down, if we can't learn why.

Where is privacy, if not in the mind?

sat mindless and eternal on the kitchen floor, stony of head and solemn, playing with my fingers. Time streamed in full flood beside me on the kitchen floor; time roared raging beside me down its swollen banks; and when I woke I was so startled I fell in.

Annie Dillard

a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.

One day, I'll sit down with all my books around me, and just start reading.

It's a long silence but far from empty.

James discovered that there is nothing so congenial to lucid thought as a clear view of the sea. It aired his mind, tuned his nerves and scoured his soul. He determined always to live in sight of it.

Put the kettle on. Look out the kitchen window. Love that remains.

It's more like... It keeps the world out so I can be in my own thoughts.