logo

Quotes About Contemplation

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are diregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.
~ Thomas Hardy
She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year. Her own birthday, and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought, one afternoon, that there was another date, of greater importance than all those; that of her own death; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it?
~ Thomas Hardy
To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we may possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such a stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was.
~ Thomas Hardy
His parted lips were lips which spoke, not of love, but of millions of miles; those were eyes which habitually gazed, not into the depths of other eyes, but into other worlds. Within his temples dwelt thoughts, not of woman's looks, but of stellar aspects and the configuration of constellations.
~ Thomas Hardy
I think of people more kindly when I am away from them.
~ Thomas Hardy
A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul.
~ Thomas Hardy
She seemed to be occupied with of inner chamber of ideas and to have slight need for visible objects.
~ Thomas Hardy
And all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other possible shape.
~ Thomas Hardy
For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man.
~ Thomas Hardy
A great statesman thinks several times, and acts; a young lady acts, and thinks several times.
~ Thomas Hardy
Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny side.
~ Thomas Hardy
Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer: and they were again silent.
~ Thomas Hardy
When sorrow ceases to be speculative sleep sees her opportunity.
~ Thomas Hardy
her presence had not so much weight as to task thought, and yet enough to exercise it.
~ Thomas Hardy
He walked from one window to another and became aware that the most irksome of solitudes is not the solitude of remoteness, but that which is just outside desirable company.
~ Thomas Hardy
The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.
~ Thomas Hardy
To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement.
~ Thomas Hardy
Se recostó contra las colmenas, y levantando al cielo la cara, hizo algunas observaciones a propósito de las estrellas, cuyas frías pulsaciones palpitaban en las negras oquedades de allá arriba, llenas de serena indiferencia respecto a aquellas dos briznas de humanidad.
~ Thomas Hardy
She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen and among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation?
~ Thomas Hardy
On the contrary, you speak so beautifully that I could listen all day.' The astronomer threw a searching glance upon her for a moment; but there was no satire in the warm soft eyes which met his own with a luxurious contemplative interest. 'Say more of it to me,' she continued, in a voice not far removed from coaxing.
~ Thomas Hardy
Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment, he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not
~ Thomas Hardy
a subtlist in emotions, he cultivated as under glasses strange and mournful pleasures that he would not willingly let die just at present. To show any forwardness in suggesting a modus vivendi to Grace would be to put an end to these exotics. To be the vassal of her sweet will for a time, he demanded no more, and found solace in the contemplation of the soft miseries she caused him.
~ Thomas Hardy
Boldwood had not been outside his garden since his meeting with Bathsheba in the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone, he had remained in moody meditation on woman's ways, deeming as essentials of the whole sex the accidents of the single one of their number he had ever closely beheld.
~ Thomas Hardy
Stia cum sa prinda, in ultimul moment, acea clipa a inserarii, cand lumina si intunericul sunt atat de bine echilibrate, incat ziua ce scade si noaptea ce pluteste Inca nehotarata in aer se neutralizeaza una pe cealalta, ingaduind gandurilor sa zboare neingradite.
~ Thomas Hardy