Contemplation Quotes - Page 26

• No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Math, Diagrams, Died

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• Learn to self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. As soon you apply yourself to orison, you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together: they seem like bees which return to the hive and there shut themselves up to work at the making of honey. At the first call of the will, they come back more and more quickly. At last, after countless exercises, of this kind, God disposes them to a state of utter rest and of perfect contemplation.

  Teresa of Avila

  Exercise, Self, Perfect

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• What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us, but makes us intellectual beings.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Thoughtful, Intellectual

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1964). “The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.58, Harvard University Press

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• The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from theconnection of things, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Lying, Thoughtful

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.276, Modern Library

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• So it follows that those who have reason have freedom to will or not to will, although this freedom is not equal in all of them. [...] human souls are more free when they persevere in the contemplation of the mind of God, less free when they descend to the corporeal, and even less free when they are entirely imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood.

  Boethius

  Blood, Soul, Mind

  Boethius, David R Slavitt (2008). “The Consolation of Philosophy”, p.150, Harvard University Press

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• The naive which is simultaneously beautiful, poetic, and idealistic, must be both intention and instinct. The essence of intention, in this sense, is freedom. Consciousness is far from intention. There is a certain enamoured contemplation of one's own naturalness or silliness which itself is unspeakably silly. Intention does not necessarily require a profound calculation or plan.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Beautiful, Silly, Essence

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• The future is dark, the present burdensome. Only the past, dead and buried, bears contemplation.

  Geoffrey Elton

  Dark, Past, History

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• If you expound the teaching of the Logos from the standpoint of the moral life, using materialistic words and examples which correspond to the capacity of your hearers, you make the Logos flesh. Conversely, if you elucidate mystical theology by means of the higher forms of contemplation you make the Logos spirit.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Teaching, Mean

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• There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow - of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body - has been pleasant to dwell upon.

  Solomon Northup

  Tired, Happy Life, Sorrow

  Solomon Northup (2016). “Twelve Years a Slave”, p.76, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• When like the patriarchs we learn to dig wells of virtue and spiritual knowledge within ourselves by means of ascetic practice and contemplation, we will find within us Christ the spring of life (cf. Gen. 26:15-18). Wisdom commands us to drink from this spring, saying, 'Drink water from your own pitchers and from the spring of your own wells' (Prov. 5:15). If we do this we shall find that the treasures of wisdom truly are within us.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Spring

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• The man who has struggled bravely with the passions of the body, has fought ably against unclean spirits, and has expelled from his soul the conceptual images they provoke, should pray for a pure heart to be given him and for a spirit of integrity to be renewed within him (cf. Ps. 51:10). In other words, he should pray that by grace he may be completely emptied of evil thoughts and filled with divine thoughts, so that he may become a spiritual world of God, splendid and vast, wrought from moral, natural and theological forms of contemplation.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Integrity

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• In certain strains of Judaism, there's a profound passion for the ineffable. Contemplation of God is meant to be forever elusive, because, you know, our tiny minds can't possibly comprehend Him. If we find ourselves comprehending Him, then we can be sure we're off track.

  Ben Marcus

  Passion, Track, Profound

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• The study of letters is the study of the operation of human force, of human freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of the operation of non-human forces, of human limitation and passivity. The contemplation of human force and activity tends naturally to heighten our own force and activity; the contemplation of human limits and passivity tends rather to check it. Therefore the men who have had the humanistic training have played, and yet play, so prominent a part in human affairs, in spite of their prodigious ignorance of the universe.

  Matthew Arnold

  Education, Ignorance, Science

  Matthew Arnold (1868). “Schools and Universities on the Continent”, p.260, Macmillan

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• Then the soul, freed from vice, purged by studies of true philosophy, versed in spiritual life, and practised in matters of the intellect, devoted to the contemplation of her own substance, as if awakened from deepest sleep, opens those eyes which all possess but few use, and sees in herself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty communicated to her, and of which she then communicates a faint shadow to the body.

  Baldassare Castiglione

  Spiritual, Philosophy, Sleep

  Baldassare Castiglione (2003). “The Book of the Courtier”, p.300, Courier Corporation

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• Egoism will be destroyed, if you constantly tell yourself, 'It is He, not I','He is the force, I am but the instrument'. Keep His name always on the tongue, and contemplate His glory whenever you see or hear anything beautiful or grand.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Beautiful, Names, Tongue

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• This severe, ascetic music, calm and horizontal as the line of the ocean, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous, and yet so intense in its contemplativeness that it verges sometimes on ecstasy.

  Charles Gounod

  Music, Ocean, Serenity

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• The octave formed a circle and gave our noble earth its form.

  Pythagoras

  Inspiration, Circles, Noble

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• Some are slaves of ambition or money, but others are interested in understanding life itself. These give themselves the name of philosophers , and they value the contemplation and discovery of nature beyond all other pursuits.

  Pythagoras

  Philosophy, Ambition, Discovery

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• The serenity produced by the contemplation and philosophy of nature is the only remedy for prejudice, superstition, and inordinate self-importance, teaching us that we are all a part of Nature herself, strengthening the bond of sympathy which should exist between ourselves and our brother man. . .

  Luther Burbank

  Brother, Nature, Philosophy

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• He who through virtue and spiritual knowledge has brought his body into harmony with his soul has become a harp, a flute and a temple of God. He has become a harp by preserving the harmony of the virtues; a flute by receiving the inspiration of the Spirit through divine contemplation; and a temple by becoming a dwelling place of the Logos through the purity of his intellect.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Inspiration

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• Writers who teach tend to prefer literary theory to literature and tenure to all else. Writers who do not teach prefer the contemplation of Careers to art of any kind.

  Gore Vidal

  Art, Writing, Literary Theory

  Gore Vidal (1991). “A view from the diners club: essays 1987-1991”

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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

  Reality, Vision, Humans

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• Whenever we strive to make progress in our meditations, contemplations and so forth we are practicing effort.

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

  Effort, Meditation, Progress

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso (2011). “Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness”, p.266, Tharpa Publications US

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• The artist's mission is to make the soul perceptible. Our scientific, materialist culture trains us to develop the eyes of outer perception. Visionary art encourages the development of our inner sight. To find the visionary realm, we use the intuitive inner eye: The eye of contemplation; the eye of the soul. All the inspiring ideas we have as artists originate here.

  Alex Grey

  Art, Eye, Sight

  Interview with Nina Pak, miroirmagazine.com. June 6, 2014.

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• I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth.

  Petrarch

  Climbing, Mountain, Earth

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