Quotes About Contemplation

I didn't say much; my head was still ringing with the music, and I didn't want it to fade.

conducts a swift mental list of people she

I thought about the warm skin and soft hair and hands of someone living, someone who was far cleverer and funnier than I would ever be and who still couldn't see a better future than to obliterate himself.

I had a drink, and then another. I listened to their talk of mileage, of the skinned knees and the hypothermic swimming bouts. I tuned out, and watched the other people in the pub, wondering about their lives. Each of them would have huge events in their own families - babies loved and lost, dark secrets, great joy and tragedies. If they could put it into perspective, if they could just enjoy a sunny evening in a pub garden, then surely I should too.

Alice sat on the swing seat, listening to the crickets and wondering how she could be in a house full of people and also in the loneliest place on earth.

I walked with nowhere particular to go, and nowhere I had to be.

I keep saying the words. Sometimes I think I dreamed it.

anything to stop me having to sit and contemplate my own life.

I am in a tree, thinking tree thoughts.

Always take all the time to reflect that circumstances permit, but when the time for action has come, stop thinking. (Andrew Jackson)

W]e need to think twice about raining down vengeance and anger as our default position.

GRUBELEIEN: German word for a not entirely unpleasant form of brooding; a sort of inward directed schadenfreude, i.e., perverse delight in one's own troubles

A meeting with nature means to me sometimes more than meeting with a person. It wakes up feelings, memories. Its arrows shoot deep, always on target

pasidaryt mažesniam reikia daug laiko.

Try to think about more important things,' he said. 'Think about your soul, your character. Think about the freezer. It's a solid block of ice. It needs defrosting. There might a steak in there. Concentrate on things like that. There could be a meal in it.

I felt myself falling asleep; my eyes were closing, and then I thought, Maybe I should just kill myself. Suicidal thoughts always sneak up on me like that. But I don't mind them. They're like aspirin. They calm me down.

When he had gone, I lay in bed for a long time, listening to the voices of the choir at evensong. Outside, the darkness thickened and grew strange.

If there be such a distinguishing excellency in divine things, tis rational to suppose that there may be such a thing as seeing it.

And it may be thus described: a true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the word of God, and a conviction of the truth and reality of them thence arising. This

The first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

But the first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone.

With such a vast and wonderful library spread out before us, we often skim books or read just the reviews. We might already have encountered the Greatest Idea, the insight that would have transformed us had we savored it, taken it to heart, and worked it into our lives.

Words of wisdom, the meaning of life, p e r h a p s even the answer sought by Borges's librarians—all of these may wash over us every day, but they can do little for us unless we savor them, engage with them, question them, improve them, and connect them to our lives

singing in choruses, performing in marching bands, listening to sermons, attending political rallies, and meditating. Most of my students have experienced the switch at least once, although only a few had a life-changing experience. More commonly, the effects fade away within a few hours or days.