Quotes About Contemplation

Be still and know that I am God." I read in this familiar verse from Psalm 46 two commands of equal importance. First, I must be still, something that modern life conspires against. Ten years ago I responded to letters within a couple of weeks and kept my correspondents happy. Five years ago I faxed a response in a couple of days and they seemed content. Now they want email responses the same day and berate me for not using instant messaging or a mobile phone.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is required. The stars neither require it nor demand it. ANNIE DILLARD

Like all great readers, he could create for himself a wall of stillness.

Some of us are born to a solitary life.

She stood silent among the quiet sounds of the night, and certainty came to her.

how it is that men, even thoughtful men, can sound as if they never consider anything but always simply know.

When you are still and thoughtful you are as lovely as the statues they are carving in Italy.

I had a small looking glass on the wall and I stood before it and gazed at my own reflection.

I ask you to go back and read them over again, and this time answer them keeping in mind that you are writing your children's future with your answers.

There are things we see with our eyes, sitting high and looking out. And there are things we see with our hearts, sitting still and looking in.

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.

In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

Sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it;

In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.

Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn't about turning your back on the world; it's about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply. •

I do not think, I note (Je ne pense pas; je note)

There is hardly more than the eyes, the open air, the grass and the water in the distance . . .

The more you look, the more you see.

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

No human thing is of serious importance.

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

what if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,...the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;...would that be a life to disregard?

Philosophy is the highest music.

for the unexamined life is not worth living.