contemplation Quotes

“Do you hear?” Vasudeva’s mute gaze asked. Siddhartha nodded. “Listen better!” Vasudeva whispered.

“They who have received some portion of God’s gift, these, if judged by their deeds, have from death’s bond won their release; for they embrace in their own mind, all things, things on the earth, things in the heaven, and things above the heaven - if there be aught. They who do not understand, because they possess the aid of reason only and not mind, are ignorant wherefore they have come into being and whereby, like irrational creatures, their makeup is in their feelings and their impulses, they fail in all appreciation of things which really are worth contemplation. These center all their thought upon the pleasures of the body and its appetites.”

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.”

“What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua-that’s the only name I can think of for it-like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep.”

“When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason ,I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: his ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name.”

“I am going to look at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us, all we ever see of stars are their old photographs.”

“Close your eyes and stare into the dark.”

“So take the time to think. Discover your real reason for being here and then have the courage to act on it.”

“Hope is the gateway to contemplation, because contemplation is an experience of divine things and we cannot experience what we do not in some way possess.”

“The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. . . . The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. —J. Bronowski”

“Then Leonardo made a very bid decision.”

“Contemplation is nothing else but a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which, if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the Spirit of love.”

“Seek in reading and you will find in meditation; knock in prayer and it will be opened to you in contemplation.”

“Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.”

“But that’s what being poor does to you; it shortens your childhood. It hardens your ambition.”

“When I married Jacques I understood it as an exchange. My youth and beauty for his wealth. Over the years, as is the way with this particular kind of contract, my worth only diminished as his increased.”

“I pause. Something about this doesn’t feel right. I’ve had to rely on my instincts quite a lot over the years. And I’ve also been here before. Hand clasped around the door handle. Not knowing what I’m going to find on the other side-”

“Then they looked at their street with no children. Then they looked at Henry’s face.”

The Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thistly corner of the forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, “Why?” and sometimes he thought, “Wherefore?” and sometimes he thought, “Inasmuch as which?“—and sometimes he didn’t quite know what he was thinking about.

He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he could think.

“That’s the question,” said Antony to himself, as he filled his pipe, “and bless me if I know the answer.

Seated with folded arms in a corner of the carriage, he continued to ponder over the singular history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself an interminable number of questions touching its various circumstances without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of them.

Slumber refused to visit his eyelids and the night was passed in feverish contemplation of the chain of circumstances tending to prove the identity of the mysterious visitant to the Colosseum with the inhabitant of the grotto of Monte Cristo; and the more he thought, the firmer grew his opinion on the subject.