quotes about Contemplation
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Contemplation is that condition of alert passivity, in which the soul lays itself open to the divine Ground within and without, the immanent and transcendent Godhead.
-- Aldous Huxley -
No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
-- Alfred North Whitehead -
Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.
-- Clarence Darrow -
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The wider our contemplation of creation, the grander is our conception of God.
-- Cyril of Jerusalem -
I feel like I'm stepping into a place of spiritual contemplation every time I enter a studio; it's always had a certain magic to me that has never worn off with familiarity.
-- David Knopfler -
Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.
-- Dodie SmithSource : Dodie Smith (2012). “I Capture the Castle”, p.40, Random House
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Work without contemplation is never enough.
-- Douglas V. Steere -
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If you learn music, you'll learn history. If you learn music, you'll learn mathematics. If you learn music, you'll learn most all there is to learn.
-- Edgar Cayce -
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
-- Francis Bacon -
Reformation ends not in contemplation, but in action.
-- George GillespieSource : George Gillespie (1846). “The Presbyterian's Armoury: and II. The works of Mr. George Gillespie, with memoir of his life and writings”
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In the contemplation of beauty we are raised above ourselves, the passions are silenced and we are happy in the recognition of a good that we do not seek to possess.
-- George Santayana -
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Contemplate sweetly on love, and the wisdom of God shall find you.
-- Harold Klemp -
Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion.
-- Henry Fielding -
Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit.
-- Henry Ward Beecher -
Works of art must persist as objects of contemplation.
-- Herbert Read -
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The initial step for us all to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.
-- Irenaeus of Lyons -
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation.
-- Jacob Bronowski -
Birth and death are the most singular events we experience - and the contemplation of death, as of birth, should be a thing of beauty, not ignobility.
-- Jacob K. Javits -
Wisdom requires not only the investigation of many things, but contemplation of the mystery.
-- Jeremy NarbySource : Jeremy Narby (1999). “The Cosmic Serpent”, p.124, Penguin
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Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.
-- John Cowper PowysSource : John Cowper Powys (1930). “In defence of sensuality”
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If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.
-- John Dos Passos -
... the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul.
-- Josef Pieper -
The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.
-- Josef PieperSource : Josef Pieper (1989). “An Anthology”, p.42, Ignatius Press
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I can recommend nothing better... than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others.
-- Joshua ReynoldsSource : Sir Joshua Reynolds (1860). “The Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds: First President of the Royal Academy”, p.107
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It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it.
-- Lionel Trilling -
A contemplative life has more the appearance of a life of piety than any other; but it is the divine plan to bring faith into activity and exercise.
-- Lord David Cecil -
What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.
-- Meister Eckhart -
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But active programming consists of the design of new programs, rather than contemplation of old programs.
-- Niklaus Wirth -
Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.
-- Owen Feltham -
The proper Science and Subject for Man's Contemplation is Man himself. [Fr., La vraie science et le vrai etude de l'homme c'est l'homme.]
-- Pierre Charron -
In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view; the vision is such that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical.
-- Plotinus -
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The greatness of contemplation can be given to none but those who love.
-- Pope Gregory I -
I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke -
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Human vision is endowed with the greatest Reality, since it comes to us directly from the contemplation of the Universe.
-- Robert Delaunay -
All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation.
-- Susan Sontag -
Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
-- Tahir ShahSource : Tahir Shah “In Search of King Solomon's Mines, Dyslexic edition”, Lulu.com
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Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity.
-- Thomas Merton -
Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell; Where the pois'd lark his evening ditty chants, And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
-- Tobias Smollett -
Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food - the way to get life out of it
-- Tryon Edwards -
Furthermore, the apostolic life does not exclude contemplation but encompasses it and profits by it to know better the eternal truths it must proclaim
-- Vincent de Paul -
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The law of flying was not discovered by the contemplation of things staying on the ground.
-- Wayne Dyer -
The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.
-- Isaac D'Israeli -
Books that talk about 'contemplation' often seem to have been written on Jupiter. This one is a sterling exception.
-- Martin Laird -
We have within us the power to uplift ourselves. This power is our own awareness.
-- Shankarananda -
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There are few things more pleasing than the contemplation of order and useful arrangement.
-- Arthur Phillips -
Nature is seen by humans through a screen of beliefs, knowledge, and purposes, and it is in terms of their images of nature, rather than of the actual structure of nature, that they act. Yet, it is upon nature itself that they do act, and it is nature itself that acts upon them, nurturing or destroying them.
-- Roy Rappaport -
My life will always have dirty dishes. If this sink can become a place of contemplation, let me learn constancy here.
-- Gunilla Brodde Norris