Contemplation Quotes And Sayings

by allinspiration.com

“The happy man needs nothing and no one. Not that he holds himself aloof, for indeed he is in harmony with everything and everyone; everything is ‘in him’; nothing can happen to him. The same may also be said for the contemplative person; he needs himself alone; he lacks nothing.”
– Josef Pieper

“The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.”
– Josef Pieper

“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

“Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.”
– Josef Pieper

“Contemplation does not ignore the ‘historical Gethsemane’, does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness, indeed the supreme happiness; but it is founded upon sorrow.”
– Josef Pieper

“The common element in all the special forms of contemplation is the loving, yearning, affirming bent toward that happiness which is the same as God Himself, and which is the aim and purpose of all that happens in the world.”
– Josef Pieper

“In the city fields
Contemplating cherry-trees…
Strangers are like friends”
– Kobayashi Issa

“Contemplation does not rest until it has found the object which dazzles it.”
– Konrad Weiss

“The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.”
– Lewis H. Lapham

“A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.”
– Lewis Mumford

“Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.”
– Liberty Hyde Bailey

“When Newton saw an apple fall, he found In that slight startle from his contemplation – ‘Tis said (for I’ll not answer above ground For any sage’s creed or calculation) – A mode of proving that the earth turned round In a most natural whirl called ‘G’.”
– Lord Byron

“We skim over the surface thoughtlessly. But we must acknowledge that thinking well is a time-consuming process. We can’t expect instant results. We have to slow down a bit, and take the time to contemplate, meditate, and even pray. It is the only route to a more meaningful and efficient existence.”
– M. Scott Peck

“Observe and contemplate on the hidden things of life: how a man’s seed is but the beginning, it takes others to bring it to fruition. Think how food undergoes such changes to produce health and strength. See the power of these hidden things which, like the wind cannot been seen, but its effects can be.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed.”
– Margaret Meade

“Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.”
– Marian Wright Edelman

“True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and through them, all the rest.”
– Maurice Merleau-Ponty

“What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.”
– Meister Eckhart

“What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.”
– Meister Eckhart

“Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”
– Mother Theresa

“Our life of contemplation shall retain the following characteristics:
—missionary: by going out physically or in spirit in search of souls all over the universe.
—contemplative: by gathering the whole universe at the very center of our hearts where the Lord of the universe abides, and allowing the pure water of divine grace to flow plentifully and unceasingly from the source itself, on the whole of his creation.
—universal: by praying and contemplating with all and for all, especially with and for the spiritually poorest of the poor.”
– Mother Theresa

“Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.”
– Niccolò Machiavelli

“Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.”
– Nicolas Chamford

“Sometimes I make up my mind, other times my mind wanders, and every so often I lose track of it entirely.”
– Nishan Panwar

“All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.”
– Paulo Coelho

“The quiet time that I spend in my studio allows me the opportunity to contemplate the poetic essence of a subject.”
– Peter Adams

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
– Peter Drucker

“The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.”
– Quintilian

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.”
– Rachel Carson

“Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.”
– Randolph Bourne

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