Quotes About Meditation

As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.

A spiritual life in the midst of our energy-draining society requires us to take conscious steps to safeguard that inner space where we can keep our eyes fixed on the beauty of the Lord.

Gazing is probably the best word to touch the core of Eastern spirituality. Whereas St. Benedict, who has set the tone for the spirituality of the West, calls us first of all to listen, the Byzantine fathers focus on gazing

I have chosen icons because they are created for the sole purpose of offering access, through the gate of the visible, to the mystery of the invisible. Icons are painted to lead us into the inner room of prayer and bring us close to the heart of God.

in and through solitude we do not move away from people. On the contrary, we move closer to them through compassionate ministry.

The Russian mystics describe prayer as descending with the mind into the heart and standing there in the presence of God. Prayer takes place where heart speaks to heart, that is, where the heart of God is united with the heart that prays. Thus knowing God becomes loving God, just as being known by God is being loved by God.

Solitude is the furnace in which transformation takes place.

I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

Direct your eye inward, and you'll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

I love a broad margin to my life.

Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself.

Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.

A man thinking or working will always be alone, let him be where he will.

There are many fine things we cannot say if we have to shout.

If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.