Quotes About Contemplation

I sat at the back, listening to the music or mumbling through the service. I'm never tempted by God, but I like his trappings.

When was the last time you looked at anything, solely, and concentratedly, and for its own sake? Ordinary life passes in a near blur. If we go to the theatre or the cinema, the images before us change constantly, and there is the distraction of language. Our loved ones are so well known to us that there is no need to look at them, and one of the gentle jokes of married life is that we do not.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

T]he man who meditates is a depraved animal.

J'aperçois Dieu partout dans ses oeuvres ; je le sens en moi, je le vois tout autour de moi ; mais sitôt que je veux le contempler en lui-même, sitôt que je veux chercher où il est, ce qu'il est, quelle est sa substance, il m'échappe et mon esprit troublé n'aperçoit plus rien.

O t?cere des?vârÅŸit? te îndeamn? la tristeÈ›e, e ca o icoan? a morÈ›ii.

Cuando me he fijado en algunas páginas de un autor que debe ser leído con atención, mi espíritu le abandona y se cierne en los espacios.

El gusto por la soledad y la contemplación nació en mi corazón con los sentimientos expansivos y tiernos hechos para ser su alimento. El tumulto y el ruido los oprimen y los ahogan, la calma y la paz los reaniman y los exaltan. Tengo necesidad de recogerme para amar.

Las distracciones de mis diarios paseos se han llenado a menudo de encantadoras contemplaciones cuyo recuerdo me lastimo de haber perdido. Fijaré por medio de la escritura las que aún me vengan a la mente; gozaré cada vez que las relea.

Go into the woods to lose sight and memory of the crimes of your contemporaries.

There was only one thing he

Reflection poisons desire.

Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited... For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence.

Anyhow, isn't it better to think we've got here by mistake?

A little more and I would have fallen into the mirror trap. I avoided it, but only to fall into the window trap: with nothing to do, my arms dangling, I go over to the window.

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking.

Mais comme mes regards tombaient sur le bloc de feuilles blanches, je fus saisi par son aspect et je restai, la plume en l'air, à contempler ce papier éblouissant : comme il était dur et voyant, comme il était présent. Il n'y avait rien en lui que du présent. Les lettres que je venais d'y tracer n'étaient pas encore sèches et déjà elles ne m'appartenaient plus.

When you want to understand something you stand in front of it, alone, without help: all the past in the world is of no use.

First, it has been charged with inviting people to remain in a kind of desperate quietism because, since no solutions are possible, we should have to consider action in this world as quite impossible. We should then end up in a philosophy of contemplation; and since contemplation is a luxury, we come in the end to a bourgeois philosophy. The communists in particular have made these charges.

I am alone now. Not quite alone. Hovering in front of me is still this idea. It has rolled itself into a ball, it stays there like a large cat; it explains nothing, it does not move, and contents itself with saying no.

It is alive, I can't say it isn't; but this was not the life that Anny contemplated: I see a slight tremor, I see the insipid flesh blossoming and palpitating with abandon. The eyes especially are horrible seen so close. They are glassy, soft, blind, red-rimmed, they look like fish scales.

it would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns:

Whatever work we do, our mind should be centered on God.

If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.