Quotes About Contemplation

I am not a warrior.

We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn't be a democracy, but it shouldn't be a dictatorship, either.

I understood something about myself as well, even if I didn't have the will to examine it just then.

Experiencing nothingness had left her feeling unexpectedly full.

What do you call someone who thinks deeply and can't stop talking about it?" "A priest?" said Tess, mystified. "A philosopher?

world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and gods,

In the darkest of nights, there is only one thing on your mind--should I be required to stand before the Almighty, will I find myself in His favor?

If he was going to figure out his life, he had a feeling he needed more time on his knees, lifting up holy hands without doubt.

John had no desire to move but to just be. The rain seemed to do more than water the earth tonight. It seemed to water him.

Some days I wonder how I'll get through a whole lifetime of thinking. A life that's just words, words, words, shuffling around in my head. Was I born that way?

Some days I wonder how I'll get through a whole lifetime of thinking. A life that's just words, Words, words, shuffling around in my head.

A forced contemplation of the heavens, crisp and angelic blue, a classic prelude to death.

T]ime is more purely hers if she squanders it and keeps it empty, holds it, feels it pass by, and resists filling it with anything that might put some too-useful dent in its open, airy emptiness.

Sometimes they just sit. Sometimes one turns on a radio and they listen to music, or to the news, but they don't care about the actual news, just that the radio is issuing a steadyish sound whose particulars they do not have to follow to understand what the radio is actually telling them: life is being lived. No need to be a part of it as long as you know it's streaming.

The woman senses that time is more purely hers if she squanders it and keeps it empty, holds it, feels it pass by, and resists filling it with anything that might put some too-useful dent in its open, airy emptiness.

Do you believe in God, Martin?' And he answered, 'Yes, because of His trees. Don't you?' 'I'm not sure...' 'Oh, my poor, blind Stephen! Look again, go on looking until you do believe.

Her sister continued to stare

Do you wonder that they will

Ryder has appeared in my dreams once in a while, and in my thoughts a little more often through the last five years (...)

I am alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make every hour holy...

Live the questions.

I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. ...live in the question.

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.