Quotes About Contemplation

Making is the mirror in which we see ourselves.

College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to give your brain a vigorous workout and your soul a thorough investigation, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it.

You often get a better hold upon a problem by going away from it for a time and dismissing it from your mind altogether.

always regretted that good memory often prevents us from thinking for ourselves.

Only the effort of walking calmed me, and allowed me to think at all. p 227

Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.

Just let them sit in the goddam sun. But the world won't let them because there's nothing more dangerous than letting old farts sit in the sun. They might be thinking. Same thing with kids. Keep 'em busy or they might start thinking.

I know of no more disagreeable situation than to be left feeling generally angry without anybody in particular to be angry at.

But he had the look also of a man who had thought his way through to another wiser place. To a wiser but not a happier place.

when I think of all the things I've been thinking of I feel insane

It may be the coldest day of The year, what does he think of That? I mean, what do I? And if I do, Perhaps I am myself again.

But here is where the gods are, speculating, bemused.

Gut gesprochen, gut gelernt, eilfertig herausgespien aus dem Fundus Eures Unverstands und unter konsequenter Umgehung des Nachdenkens.

All theology consists in finding out what is meant by the words "He is." Let us begin.

The unexamined life is not worth living." —Socrates

Wendla: How did you come here? Melchior: I followed my thoughts.

Half happy. We wander among Mayflowers, among the lonely paths in the woods. We hover over gatherings of people, over the scene of accidents, gardens, festivals. We cower in chimneys of dwelling places and behind the bed curtains. Give me your hand. We don't associate with each other, but we see and hear everything that is going on in the world. We know that everything is stupidity, everything that men do and contend for, and we laugh at it.

Die Nacht nach diesem Gespräch konnte ich nicht schlafen. Als Blanka nach Hause kam, schloß ich die Augen und rührte mich nicht. Aber ich mußte ununterbrochen an Irma und Margareta denken.

Para sobrellevar la pérdida, y aliviar nuestro propio terror a la mortalidad, a menudo contemplamos la muerte como una transición a otra vida. No tenemos evidencia de esta notable innovación mental en ningún otro animal.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement

Damn queer," he announced. "But lots of things damn queer. Damn queer that Moon looks just same size as Sun. Damn queer that I'm here, isn't it so?