Quotes About Contemplation

Light produces space, distance, orientation, calm contemplation; it is the gift that makes no demands, the illumination capable of conquering without force.

Coffins and coffins, enough for everyone on the shift, enough for everyone in Germany! The men are still alive, but they are already making their own coffins.

He sat in his shirt on the edge of the bed and stared into vacancy, desolate. The cigarette ash fell unnoticed on his spotless floor, patterned with the stars, and sun, and moon.

The Fathers of the Church say that prayer, properly understood, is nothing other than becoming a longing for God.

It is impossible to contemplate the word without the serious intention of doing justice to it in practical behavior. It demands love for God and our neighbor, and does so with such immediacy and unmistakable urgency that it is pointless even to pause before this demand unless we are willing to respond.

is gleaned from both "books" together. The "contemplation of nature" (?????? ??????) and of the structures of meaning (?????) hidden within it, structures that are part of every single being, becomes for Maximus a necessary step, a kind of initiation, into the knowledge of God.

We do not build the kingdom of God on earth by our own efforts (however assisted by grace); the most we can do through genuine prayer, is to make as much room as possible, in ourselves and in the world, for the kingdom of God, so that its energies can go to work. All that we can show our contemporaries of the reality of God springs from contemplation: Jesus Christ, the Church, our own selves.

Every mystery of life has its origin in the heart.

Arte es algo cuyo «uso», en vez de ser un verdadero utilizar, se cumple de modo peculiar en un demorarse contemplativo en la apariencia.

Here and there among men, there are those who pause in the hurried rush to listen to the call of a life that is more real… He who sees and hears too much is cursed for a dreamer, a fanatic, or a fool, by the mad mob who, having eyes, see not, ears and hear not, and refuse to understand…

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.

Real reading is a lonely activity.

Such a reader does not read for easy pleasure or to expiate social guilt, but to enlarge a solitary existence.

Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.

Everything becomes more meaningful to him who watches and listens without too much thought to the value of his time.

It's very difficult to feel contempt for others when you see yourself in the mirror.

staring out windows impossible to defenestrate therefrom.

The water of the river is the calmest, where the deepest.

Still waters run deepest, they used to tell me.

You're arguing in a circle," I said. "In a spiral," said Lamiel, "which is the best way to argue.

That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night.

The world was a soup and thought was generally a fork: it seldom resulted in a good meal.

I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

I actually pray everyday, but I don't believe in God.