Quotes About Contemplation

But who, save the nerve-worn and sleepless, or thinkers standing with hands to the eyes on some crag above the multitude, see things thus in skeleton outline, bare of flesh?

Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it.

That dream, of sharing, completing, of finding in solitude on the beach an answer, was then but a reflection in a mirror, and the mirror itself was but the surface glassiness which forms in quiescence when the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient, despairing yet loth to go (for beauty offers her lures, has her consolations), to pace the beach was impossible; contemplation was unendurable; the mirror was broken.

But this was one way of knowing people, she thought: to know the outline, not the detail, to sit in one's garden and look a the slopes of a hill running purple down into the distant heather.

And there he would lie all day long on the lawn brooding presumably over his poetry, till he reminded one of a cat watching birds, when he had found the word, and her husband said, Poor old Augustus--he's a true poet, which was high praise from her husband.

Strolling through those colleges past those ancient halls the roughness of the present seemed smoothed away; the body seemed contained in a miraculous glass cabinet through which no sound could penetrate, and the mind, freed from any contact with facts

There was a spectator in me who, even while I squirmed and obeyed, remained observant, note taking for some future revision.

One ought to sink to the bottom of the sea, probably, and live alone with ones words

And looking up, she saw above the thin trees the first pulse of the full-throbbing star, and wanted to make her husband look at it; for the sight gave her such keen pleasure. But she stopped herself. He never looked at things. If he did, all he would say would be, Poor little world, with one of his sighs.

Thinking was going on then as now; and thinking after all, is the flesh and blood of life; action seemed to her all out of proportion, as though people came and waved flags in your face.

It is so vast an alleviation to be able to point for another to look at. And then not to talk. To follow the dark paths of the mind and enter the past, to visit books, to brush aside their branches and break off some fruit.

Egli la contemplò; tremò; ebbe caldo; ebbe freddo; anelò di lanciarsi tra il soffio ardente dell'estate; di premere il piede su delle ghiande; di allacciare con le braccia tronchi di faggi e di querce.

Now I will watch and see how I resurrect.

A wet day. And I am glad of the rain, because I have talked too much.

In the Queen's prayerbook, along with the blood-stain, was also a lock of hair and a crumb of pastry; Orlando now added to these keepsakes a flake of tobacco, and so, reading and smoking, was moved by the humane jumble of them all--the hair, the pastry, the blood-stain, the tobacco--to such a mood of contemplation as gave her a reverent air suitable in the circumstances, though she had, it is said, no traffic with the usual God.

Comprobó con asombro que era un enorme alivio estar sola.

I can't tell you how piercingly and endlessly I think about you.

Talk of solitude (...). It is the last resort of the civilised: our souls are so creased and soured in meaning we can only unfold them when we are alone. (5/4/1927 - From a Letter to Vita Sackville-West)

The weekly creak and screech of brains rinsed in cold water and wrung dry

Magában lehet, egyedül. S mostanában erre gyakran van szüksége - hogy gondolkozzék. Hogy ne kelljen beszélnie, egyedül legyen. Az egész lét, minden, amit teszünk, dallamos, ragyogó, lelkesítÅ', elillan, s ünnepélyes érzéssel önmagunkká, legigazibb lényünkké zsugorodunk, a sötétség ék alakú, mások számára láthatatlan magvává.

Mert vannak pillanatok, amikor az ember sem gondolkozni, sem érezni nem tud. S ha nem érezünk, sem nem gondolkozunk, akkor?...t?nÅ'dött.

Nothing in the world pleases her so well as solitude. She is happiest alone in the country. She loves rambling alone in her woods. She loves going out by herself at night. She loves hiding from callers. She loves walking among her trees and musing.

Jacob observed Florinda. In her face there seemed to him something horribly brainless- as she sat staring.

E pensai a quanto fosse sgradevole esserne chiusi fuori; e pensai a come, forse, debba essere peggio rimanere chiusi dentro.