Contemplation Quotes

No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.

[To Aquinas] the senses are what we have in common with dumb animals. ... Our better part [is] the mind ... and [its] intellectual contemplation.

It was the contemplation of God that created men who were equal, for it was in God that they were equal.

That which is not worth contemplating in life, is not worth recreating in art.

Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.

Surely again, to heal men's wounds by music's spell.

Spirituality lies in regarding existence merely as a vehicle for contemplation, and contemplation merely a vehicle for joy.

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

Self-contemplation is apt to end in self-conceit.

The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.

We must not imitate the externals of nature with so much fidelity that the picture fails to evoke that wonderful teasing recurrence of emotion that marks the contemplation of a work of art.

A contemplation of God's works, a generous concern for the good of mankind, and the unfeigned exercise of humility only, denominate men great and glorious.

Books that talk about 'contemplation' often seem to have been written on Jupiter. This one is a sterling exception.

The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible.

Contemplation is necessary to generate an object, but action must propagate it.

Human vision is endowed with the greatest Reality, since it comes to us directly from the contemplation of the Universe.

Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis, to contemplation.

Writers have an opinion about the world and offer arguments about the world. They should offer contemplation.

Paris strikes the vulgar part of us infinitely the most, but to a thinking mind London is incomparably the most delightful subject for contemplation.

I benefit from contemplation, but it's a great antidote to that, having someone interesting come into the studio environment to be painted, so that I can experience a little bit of their world.

To Contemplation's sober eye. / Such is the race of Man.

How often do we talk just to fill up the quiet space? How often do we waste our breath talking about nonsense?

I do a lot of reflection. I do. I spend a lot of time in reflection and contemplation. I guess the way the old mystics used to do. I don't do meditation. That's not for me. It's not my thing.

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.

Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.

Life was not given for indolent contemplation and study of self, nor for brooding over emotions of piety: Actions and actions only determine the worth.

I'm having the time of my life figuring out this next move.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.

Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation.

Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth.

Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.

Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.

Those 'back burner' thoughts, the ones the brain isn't quite sure about yet, may cook the slowest yet they often manage to be the tastiest when they come out.

There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.

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.

Faith, it is evident, may be relied on to produce sustained action and, more rarely, sustained contemplation.

Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.

In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the complete facts.

How much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

I practice Buddhist philosophy and contemplation but I don't know if I'm more of anything.

I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world.

Give me, kind heaven, a private station, a mind serene for contemplation.

Divine service, being the high contemplation of the mind, is at the same time, and pre-eminently, the peace, the sweetness and blessedness of the heart.

Adam and Eve derived the fullness of joy and bliss from their contemplation of all the animal creatures.

The feeding of those that are hungry is a form of contemplation.

Furthermore, the apostolic life does not exclude contemplation but encompasses it and profits by it to know better the eternal truths it must proclaim

Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to redeem them

Whenever I think of something but can't think of what it was I was thinking of, I can't stop thinking until I think I'm thinking of it again. I think I think too much.

For you to make your creative work creative, you must seek creativity from the creator.

Let your home be you mast and not your anchor.