Quotes About Contemplation

He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart looks at the busy world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it…. It is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things;… to take a thoughtful, anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the slightest inclination to make or meddle with it.

Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right path, he stands still.

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires.

Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner -- and then to thinking!

One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less lone than when alone...I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country...I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude...

A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.

No matter how cleverly you sneak up on a mirror your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.

Immanuel Kant is credited with saying, "If the stars came out only once in a lifetime, we'd stay up all that night." Now we stay up late in Plato's cave just to watch the enervated stars on The Tonight Show.

Religion… shall mean for us the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude.

Reading, like prayer, remains one of our few private acts

down. He realized he hadn't taken a single sip.

He was thinking about what his father had said, how the quiet of the morning was something he had almost entirely to himself, something he would come to appreciate. It was true. On the streets of Aurora in that early hour, he was almost always alone. Sometimes lights were on in a room, usually a kitchen, or on rare occasions, a car might drift past, but he and Jackson owned the sidewalks and the morning was his.

But it is not enough to be told a word as big as that. You have to live with it, carry it around with you. You have to pace around and around it, see it from different angles, at different times of day, in different light, until you understand, until it enters you. You have to hold it inside yourself in secret for years, like the hideous stone inside a peach. How

The first question which should rightly be asked is: Why is there something rather than nothing?

The first question which should rightly be asked is: Why is there something rather than nothing?"[1]

In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were, In habite as an heremite vnholy of workes, Went wyde in þis worlde wondres to here.

Dick and Tot walked down the lane together, deep in a conversation of silence.

Gin and catatonic?

Alas, that so much of my precious time is spent with so little of God.

Samuel Johnson placed this on his watch as a reminder near the end of his life; "The night cometh.

Students are taught how to do things, but many are not forced to reflect on why they should do them or what we are here for.

We need the sea. We need a place to stand and touch and listen - to feel the pusle of the world as the surf rolls in.

I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea-- do I have to choose between the two?