Quotes About Contemplation

If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.

Maybe this is who I really am. Not a loner, exactly. But someone who can be alone.

O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!

of Green Cove Springs.

As you acquire a sense of reverence, you develop a capacity to think more deeply about the value of Life before you commit your energy to action.

Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.

Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.

Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.

Side by Side: We sat side by side in the morning light & looked out at the future together.

These are the multiple shadows because there were a lot of things she walked away from without a word of explanation when she was younger & she still thinks about them more than she needs to.

They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.

If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

What was the truth? he wondered. How important was it to know? And once he knew, what then?

The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.

A man of few words is often a man of few thoughts; or he can be someone whose thoughts are best kept to himself.

Look inside yourself and you can see the universe.

I'm a thinker. That is what I do, in great depth and detail, every waking moment of the day. I like to believe it's worthwhile. And yet, I can't help but recall something ... said to me once when I was young: "All of these things with which we occupy ourselves don't amount to much in the cosmic scale of things, do they? No matter how extensively we ponder any particular topic, there is really very little there"--Gilbertus Albans, Reflections in the Mirror of the Mind

So, not at first, but I eventually realized I was seeing this level of reality that's going on right over our heads and most people have no idea it's even there. I realized I was seeing the night sky as our ancestors did, and that by losing it, we'd lost our everyday touch with our place in the cosmos.

uncharacteristic sorrow he showed one evening as he contemplated the stars and confessed, "I really thought we'd be out there by now. I really did. But we've become a complacent species without will.

silent. This was

People, Florence thought as she put on her shoes. What do I need them for again?

Hugo headed off toward the door to leave, but the bookstore was warm and quiet, and the teetering piles of books fascinated him.

It may be time for America to learn the forgotten rewards of sitting down and shutting up.