Quotes About Contemplation

Within the heart is an unfathomable depth. —The Macarian Homilies *Macarius of Egypt was a Coptic Christian monk and hermit.

We were moderate, we will never know what it is to spill out our lives...

He knew all the constellations. He had seen them rise in darkness over heartbreaking coasts.

she was motionless, like an old woman who has lived too long.

Saul was hunched over his drink like it was a small fire.

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions," Helen Keller pointed out. "Conclusions are not always pleasant."42 Most of us automatically shy away from conflict

The older you get, the more theories you make up about things.

I feel slow. I think slowly, I talk slowly, I react slowly. In the blur and rush of everything around me, I am more mindful. The mindfulness has grown quietly and surely, perhaps more a result of my slow, sparse environment in Kanglung than my own efforts. I can see how it would evaporate here without a consistent daily practice. I

I need to be alone. After a full day of talking, smiling, listening, showing, nodding, translating, I want to be alone. I want simply to come home, close the door, and sit in silence, gathering up the bits of myself that have come loose. I want to think, or not think. I want to rest.

Whenever he had a problem, he found that being near the water put things in perspective.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.

Let us have the luxury of silence.

Eleanor went to her room where she was free to think and be wretched.

Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections.

When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.

She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.

her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.

And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.

Fanny spoke her feelings. Here's harmony! said she; here's repose! Here's what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.

What are men compared to rocks and trees?

I am amazingly absent; I believe I am the most absent creature in the world.

An interval of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of everything dangerous.