Quotes About Contemplation

I spend so much time thinking and I don't generally have strong emotional reactions too much.

I'd like to give people leaden boots in galleries, so they'd be a bit slower in front of my paintings. And that's because I spend so much time looking at them. I can look at them a long, long time without getting bored. I disappear.

I hope whatever you're doing, / you're stopping now and then / and / not doing it at all.")

Ã…Å¡wiÄ…tecznÄ… póÅ'noc miÅ'o jest zatrzyma? nieco dÅ'u?ej

Tutto passa. Le sofferenze, i tormenti, il sangue, la fame e la pestilenza. La spada sparirà, e le stelle invece rimarranno, quando anche le ombre dei nostri corpi e delle nostre azioni più non saranno sulla terra. Non esiste uomo che non lo sappia. Perché allora non vogliamo rivolgere il nostro sguardo alle stelle?

Eine Viertelstunde später saß Rjuchin gänzlich einsam vor einer Zärte, leerte dazu ein Glas nach dem andern und war sich bewußt, daß er in seinem Leben nichts mehr ändern, sondern nur noch vergessen konnte.

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...

Meditation is a powerful and full study as can effectually taste and employ themselves.

Upon the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses.

If I had even the slightest grasp upon my own faculties, I would not make essays, I would make decisions.

there is nothing we can do longer than think, no activity to which we can devote ourselves more regularly nor more easily:

I...think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so.

If each man, on hearing a wise maxim, immediately looked to see how it properly applied to him, he would find that it was not so much a pithy saying as a whiplash applied to the habitual stupidity of his faculty of judgement.

Sou sociável ao excesso. Por isso me parece razoável subtrair da vista das pessoas a minha importunidade para incubá-la sozinho, e encolher-me e recolher-me em minha carapaça, como as tartarugas. Aprendo a ver os homens sem a eles me agarrar: isso seria um ultraje quando o passo é tão cambaleante.

Felsefenin insanlara, yaÅŸamaya baÅŸlarken de, ölüme doÄŸru giderken de söyleyecekleri vard?r.

Ruhumuz yapaca??n? gösteriÅŸ için yapmamal?, her ÅŸey içimizde, hiçbir gözün görmediÄŸi en gizli yerimizde olup bitmelidir.

No lo ocupamos [el pensamiento] en algún tema que lo bride y contenga, se lanza desbocado aquí y allá, por el campo difuso de las imaginaciones (Vol. I, p. 68).

Michel de Montaigne

let us learn to withstand it resolutely, and to fight it. And to start to rid it of its greatest advantage over us, let us take a completely different route from the usual one. Let us rid it of its strangeness, get to know it, become accustomed to it. Let us have nothing so often in our minds as death. Let us picture it in our imagination constantly, in all its aspects.

It is not certain where Death awaits us, so let us await it everywhere. To think of death beforehand is to think of our liberty. Whoever learns how to die has learned how not to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.xi

Isserley walked along the path the generations of sheep-flocks had made, up the tiers of the hill. In her mind, she was already

There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all.

Often to understand, we have to look into emptiness.