Contemplation Quotes - Page 24

• 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.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Agony, Feelings, Crowds

  Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories”, p.336, Bottletree Books LLC

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• What it does remind us is that 'God' is not to be separated from the quest for the Kingdom of God and is not and cannot be the object of any detached 'scientific' contemplation. Heidegger's critique of onto-theology is also driving a wedge between speaking of God and the aims of science - not so as to get rid of God but rather to free God from a false objectification.

  George Pattison

  Kingdoms, Objectification, Doe

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• 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.

  Caroline Myss

  Reflection, Meditation, Way

  "A Conversation with Caroline Myss". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• The source of inspiration can be any of the things:deep emotional experiences - say, romantic love or spiritual contemplation.I think such rare moments come only when you have total concentration. You are consumed in and by the music. I guess you could say that it is akin to contemplation. In order to reach this desirable state of mind you have to rise above the environment you're in at that particular time - a bad piano, glaring stage lights, or the attitude of the audience. Sometimes the inspiration of the other musicians you're playing with helps you reach this stage.

  Dave Brubeck

  Spiritual, Attitude, Inspiration

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• Trees are good for contemplation. Plato and Aristotle did their best thinking in the groves of olives and figs around Athens, and Buddha found enlightenment beneath a bo or peepul tree.

  Colin Tudge

  Plato, Thinking, Tree

  "Why woodlands are wonderful" by Colin Tudge, www.theguardian.com. October 8, 2010.

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• Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such the autonomous movement of non-life.

  Guy Debord

  Reality, Expression, Forever

  Guy Debord (1994). “The Society of the Spectacle”, Zone Books (NY)

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• It is in the contemplation of what you desire that you create what it is you want for yourself

  Wayne Dyer

  Desire, Want

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

  Goldie Hawn

  Buddhist, Philosophy, Practice

  "Larry King Live", edition.cnn.com. February 24, 2006.

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• When we are clear enough about our own point of view, we can find help in the methods of Eastern Christianity or in the ways of the Far East, perhaps by consulting the I Ching or through mandala contemplation; we may even find help in the ways of shamanism or Islam. If we are clear about where we stand and the direction we must take, such methods may be useful in order to follow our own way to the end.

  Morton T. Kelsey

  Views, Order, Islam

  Morton T. Kelsey (1997). “The Other Side of Silence: Meditation for the Twenty-First Century”, p.155, Paulist Press

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• But for me I think it's just about taking that time of reflection and contemplation. That's probably my process in every decision that I make: to make sure that I spend time just with myself, and really times of silence and mediation to go through that process; and music is a big part of that as well.

  Kimbra

  Thinking, Reflection, Decision

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Contemplation: I read a lot of books on philosophy and religion, and try to keep always growing in that part of my life, because without having a spiritual grounding, I think you can get really swayed by the winds of all the praise or the criticism; it's all very, kind of, up and down. Try to stay up and focused.

  Kimbra

  Spiritual, Philosophy, Book

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• The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.

  David Hume

  Ideas, Events, Firsts

  David Hume (2016). “The Natural History of Religion: Revision of Great Book”, p.7, VM eBooks

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• We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, 'Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?' involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble.

  Douglas Adams

  Nice, Order, Strange Places

  Douglas Adams (2009). “Mostly Harmless”, p.100, Pan Macmillan

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• We're certainly not perfect, and we're not probably even better than anybody else, except that perhaps we are given to certain kinds of contemplation that provide a valuable balance to the knee-jerk reactionary behavior of most of our newspapers and political leaders. Poets are great doubters.

  Sam Hamill

  Perfect, Leader, Political

  Interview with Anne-Marie Cusac, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. March 31, 2003.

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• Erotic love is one of the highest forms of contemplation.

  Kenneth Rexroth

  Love Is, Erotic, Form

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• Another error is an impatience of doubt and haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action commonly spoken of by the ancients; the one plain and smooth in the beginning, and in the end impassable; the other rough and troublesome in the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contemplation; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

  Francis Bacon

  Men, Errors, Two

  The Advancement of Learning bk. 1, ch. 5, sec. 8 (1605)

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• The true bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and circumscribed,... are three: the first, that we do not so place our felicity in knowledge, as we forget our mortality: the second, that we make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and contentment, and not distates or repining: the third, that we do not presume by the contemplation of Nature to attain to the mysteries of God.

  Francis Bacon

  Knowledge, Giving, Contentment

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• In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to Nature, or are reflected and reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, Divine Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Human Philosophy or Humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character of the power of God, the difference of Nature and the use of Man.

  Francis Bacon

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Character

  Francis Bacon, William Rawley (1863). “Philosophical works”, p.207

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• But this is that which will dignify and exalt knowledge: if contemplation and action be more nearly and straitly conjoined and united together than they have been: a conjunction like unto that of the highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action.

  Francis Bacon

  Knowledge, Together, Jupiter

  Francis Bacon (2010). “Bacon's Advancement of Learning and the New Atlantis”, p.40, Lulu.com

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• I felt so liberated when I first saw Charles Mee’s 'The Glory of the World' at BAM play, because for me this is the gateway to contemplation, or this is the gateway to love, or this is the gateway to faith, not sitting and reading a book by an isolated monk, god bless him. This is.

  Will Oldham

  Book, Reading, Play

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.

  Herbert Read

  Art, Simple, Tests

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• I think you need to have the guts to not use comedy. Often, the people that work in comedy use a joke to avoid contemplation.

  Steve Coogan

  Thinking, People, Needs

  "Steve Coogan Doesn't Believe in Fairies". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 25, 2013.

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• Zazen is seated meditation-the opposite of contemplation-the emptying of the mind of all thoughts in order simply to be. In the midst of all evil, not a thought is aroused in the mind-this is called za. Seeing into one's Self-nature, not being moved at all-this is called Zen.

  Huineng

  Self, Order, Opposites

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• There is a word in Old English which belongs wholly to that civilization - "dustsceawung," meaning contemplation of dust. It is a true image of the Anglo-Saxon mind, or at least an echo of that consciousness which considered transcience and loss to be part of the human estate; it was a world in which life was uncertain and the principal diety was fate or destiny or "wyrd."

  Peter Ackroyd

  Fate, Loss, Destiny

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

  Gustave Flaubert

  Noble, World, Knows

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