Contemplation Quotes - Page 5

• If we know the divine art of concentration, if we know the divine art of meditation, if we know the divine art of contemplation, easily and consciously we can unite the inner world and the outer world.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Art, Sri Lanka, Meditation

  Sri Chinmoy (2015). “Beyond Within: A Philosophy for the Inner Life”, p.234, Aum Publications

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• The upheaval of our world and the upheaval in consciousness is one and the same. Everything becomes relative and therefore doubtful. And while man, hesitant and questioning, contemplates... his spirit yearns for an answer that will allay the turmoil of doubt and uncertainty.

  Carl Jung

  Men, Our World, Doubt

  Carl Gustav Jung (2001). “Modern Man in Search of a Soul”, p.215, Psychology Press

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• For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule.

  John Milton

  Sweet, Eye, Grace

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 4, l. 297

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• A wise man seeks by music to strengthen his soul: the thoughtless one uses it to stifle his fears.

  Confucius

  Wise, Inspiration, Men

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• The height of devotion is reached when reverence and contemplation produce passionate worship, which in turn breaks forth in thanksgiving and praise in word and song.

  R. Kent Hughes

  Song, Thankfulness, Passionate

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• Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Perspective, Mind, Endurance

  Letter to John Adams, 1 August (1816)

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• The great and secret message of the experiential mystics the world over is that, with the eye of contemplation, Spirit can be seen. With the eye of contemplation, the great Within radiantly unfolds. And in all cases, the eye with which you see God is the same eye with which God sees you: the eye of contemplation.

  Ken Wilber

  Eye, Secret, World

  Ken Wilber (2004). “The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary, Spiritual, and Poetic Writings”, p.159, Shambhala Publications

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• The mandalas were meant to be objects of contemplation, aids to meditation, their proportions magically balanced to purify and calm the mind. To stare at a mandala was to experience, if only briefly, the nothingness that is at the heart of enlightenment.

  Douglas Preston

  Heart, Meditation, Mind

  Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child (2010). “The Wheel of Darkness: An Agent Pendergast Novel”, p.124, Hachette UK

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• Teach correctly... Find delight in contemplation.

  Saint Augustine

  Delight, Teach, Contemplating

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

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Order, Growth, Action

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, p.71, Penguin

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• I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  Contemplative Life, People, Honey

  Elizabeth Janeway (1964). “Accident”

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• There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Nature, Action, Mysterious

  Charles Baudelaire (2001). “The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo”, p.38

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• One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.

  Emile Durkheim

  Names, Long, Doe

  Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.243, Routledge

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• Him that yon soars on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheelèd throne, the Cherub Contemplation.

  John Milton

  Wings, Thrones, Golden

  John Milton (2013). “Samson Agonistes and Other Poems: A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition”, p.20, Broadview Press

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• The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Contemplative Life, Contemplative

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• True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Clever, Grace

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Contemplative Prayer”, p.70, Image

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• 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

  Views, Vision, States

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• 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

  Men, Thinking, Wind

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• 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

  Reflection, Historical, Phenomenology

  Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Thomas Baldwin (2004). “Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Basic Writings”, p.228, Psychology Press

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• Self-recognition, the self-contemplation of spirit is the primary movement out of which all creativeness proceeds.

  Paul Twitchell

  Self, Movement, Spirit

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• The disciplines of prayer, silence, and contemplation as practiced by the monastics and mystics are precisely that - stopping the noise, slowing down, and becoming still so that God can break through all our activity and noise to speak to us. Prayer serves to put all parts of our lives in God's presence, reminding us how holy our humanity really is.

  Jim Wallis

  Prayer, Break Through, Discipline

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• Prayer can assume very different forms, from quiet, blessed contemplation of God, in which eye meets eye in restful meditation, to deep sighs or sudden exclamations of wonder, joy, gratitude or adoration.

  Ole Hallesby

  Gratitude, Prayer, Blessed

  Ole Hallesby (1975). “Prayer”, Augsburg Fortress Publishing

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• Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.

  Auguste Rodin

  Inspirational, Motivational, Art

  Auguste Rodin (2012). “Rodin on Art and Artists”, p.1, Courier Corporation

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• 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

  Exercise, Contemplative Life, Appearance

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• The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.

  Josef Pieper

  Life Is, Active, Ultimate

  Josef Pieper (1989). “An Anthology”, p.42, Ignatius Press

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