Quotes About Contemplation

I don't try to make any decision of the impulse of my heart. I think things through and go from there.

I dwell in the past.

On the issue of abortion, I'm ever on the fence, or, at most, an inch or two to either side.

I'll go out at night and look up at the stars and think, 'How ridiculously inconsequential I am in the scheme of things.'

Indecision and reveries are the anesthetics of constructive action.

Thinking no longer means anymore than checking at each moment whether one can indeed think.

Eppure la lentezza -a differenza dell'ozio, che richiede doti agonistiche- ha ancora il suo fascino.

But if metaphysics is to proceed by intuition, if intuition has the mobility of duration as its object, and if duration is of a psychical nature, shall we not be confining the philosopher to the exclusive contemplation of himself?

She gazes up at the sky through the window. 'Come to think of it, wouldn't it be brilliant if we could stop time when we felt like it, catch up on stuff and then slip back into it?

the humblest man alive must confess, that the reward of a virtuous action, which is the satisfaction that ensues upon it, consists in a certain pleasure he procures to himself by contemplating on his own worth: which pleasure, together with the occasion of it, are as certain signs of pride, as looking pale and trembling at any imminent danger, are the symptoms of fear.

its normal pace, even with the threat of a gale. How long will it last, this peace I have found at sea? It is all of life that I contemplate—sun, clouds, time that passes and abides. Occasionally it is also that other world, foreign now, that I left centuries ago. The modern, artificial world where man has been turned into a money-making machine to satisfy false needs, false joys.

I spend my time reading, sleeping, eating. The good, quiet life, with nothing to do. And little by little the water tank fills up.

Je prends le globe du Damien et regarde longuement l'immense boucle tracée depuis le départ. Plymouth si près, dix mille milles à peine vers le nord… mais partir de Plymouth pour rentrer à Plymouth, c'est devenu au fil du temps comme partir de nulle part pour aller nulle part. C'est formidable, ce petit globe que je tiens dans mes mains ! Et nous sommes seuls, mon bateau et moi. Seuls avec la mer immense pour nous tout seuls.

I am neither happy nor sad, neither really tense nor really relaxed. Perhaps that is the way it is when a man gazes at the stars, asking himself questions he is not mature enough to answer. So one day he is happy, the next a bit sad without knowing why. It is a little like the horizon: for all your distinctly seeing sky and sea come together on the same line, for all your constantly making for it, the horizon stays at the same distance, right at hand and out of reach.

concentrating on a magnetized needle prevents one from participating in the real universe, seen and unseen, where a sailboat moves.

The days go by, never monotonous. Even when they appear exactly alike they are never quite the same. That is what gives life at sea its special dimension, made up of contemplation and very simple contrasts. Sea, winds, calms, sun clouds, porpoises. Peace, and the joy of being alive in harmony.

Solitary walking forces us to confront ourselves, freeing us from the limitations of the body as well as those of our usual environment that restrict us to conventional, acceptable, and prepackaged ways of thinking.

Parfois lorsque je me promène en été, je m'aperçois que j'ai failli marcher sur une espèce de mouche. Je la regarde mieux : c'est une reine fourmi. [...] Combien de cités furent ainsi anéanties, d'un simple coup d'essuie-glace sur une route d'été ?

Qu'y a-t-il de plus jouissif que de s'arrêter de penser ? Cesser enfin ce flot débordant d'idées plus ou moins utiles ou plus ou moins importantes. S'arrêter de penser ! Comme si on était mort tout en pouvant redevenir vivant. Être le vide. Retourner aux origines suprêmes. N'être même plus quelqu'un qui ne pense à rien. Être rien. Voilà une noble ambition.

Tähtis pole mitte veenda, vaid mõtlema panna.

They knew that Pascal's room, Thoreau's hut, and especially their own den was a dark chamber, an unhealthy space full of resentment; they knew that one is nothing when alone, that one thinks most often of nothing at all, and that hell is not other people, but the self.

Work, he tells them one night, is a kind of prayer.

We have deep depth.

Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.