Contemplative Quotes - Page 5

• A man can never have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would christen him Nothing-To-Do; he should do nothing. Man, I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I am altogether for the life contemplative.

  Charles Lamb

  Believe, Son, Men

  Charles Lamb, Rosamund Gray (1838). “The Works of Charles Lamb”, p.104

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• The principles of my works... are the extinction of expression, permanent covering and contemplative tranquillity... My ideal is the completely dark picture, full of some overwhelming silence.

  Arnulf Rainer

  Dark, Expression, Silence

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• The myth of Canada, its hidden story, is of a contemplative country, a place of inwardness, where people can question the idea of nationhood and ponder what values we wish to see expressed and achieved, and what solitudes of identity and reverie we wish to preserve.

  B. W. Powe

  Country, Ideas, People

  "Towards a Canada of Light". Book by Bruce W. Powe, 2006.

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• This is the path of prayer-contemplative prayer, that is, as distinct from simple prayers of supplication and thanksgiving-which is a specific discipline of thought, desire, and action, one that frees the mind from habitual prejudices and appetites, and allows it to dwell in the gratuity and glory of all things. As an old monk on Mount Athos once told me, contemplative prayer is the art of seeing reality as it truly is; and, if one has not yet acquired the ability to see God in all things, one should not imagine that one will be able to see God in himself.

  David Bentley

  Art, Prayer, Simple

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• Flyfishing does have its social aspects - on some of our crowded trout streams it can get too social - but esentially it's a solitary, contemplative sport. People are left alone with themselves in beautiful surroundings to try to accomplish something that seems to have genuine value.

  John Gierach

  Beautiful, Sports, Sea

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• Thought is powerless, except it make something outside of itself: the thought which conquers the world is not contemplative but active.

  William Kingdon Clifford

  Conquer The World, Atheism, Active

  William Kingdon Clifford, Leslie Stephen, Frederick Pollock (2011). “Lectures and Essays”, p.10, Cambridge University Press

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• Books are surviving in this intense, fragmented, hyper-accelerated present, and my sense and hope is that things will slow down again and people will want more time for a contemplative life. There is no way people can keep up this pace. No one is happy. Two or three hours to read should not be an unattainable thing, although I hope we get to that stage without needing a corporate sponsored app to hold our hand. The utopian in me has my fingers crossed that we haven't quite figured out the digital future just yet. After all, the one thing we know about people: they always surprise.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Contemplative Life, Hands

  "Junot Díaz: a life in books" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. August 31, 2012.

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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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• But nothing is yet clear on the subject of the intellect and the contemplative faculty. However, it seems to be another kind of soul, and this alone admits of being separated, as that which is eternal from that which is perishable, while it is clear from these remarks that the other parts of the soul are not separable, as some assert them to be, though it is obvious that they are conceptually distinct.

  Aristotle

  Soul, Kind, Faculty

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• The book is the book and it will always be there. It's a quiet ending. In the book it's a contemplative ending which I think you could certainly do that in a movie.

  Jane Goldman

  Book, Thinking, Quiet

  Source: movieweb.com

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• We live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can't tell us what's worth knowing and what is merely cultural scrap. In such a society, we don't have the experience of contemplative space, of the time or mood to engage a book of poetry or even read a novel. Who can achieve the unconscious-conscious state of the reader when everything is stimulation, everything is movement and information?

  T.C. Boyle

  Book, Knowing, Space

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• The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Action, Contemplation, Persons

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• Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Struggle, Love Is, Self

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• Finding God in all things is not an 'empirical eureka.' When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way...A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God, and love of all things in God-this is the sign that you are on this right path.

  Pope Francis

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Attitude

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• The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled "a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Good Luck, Men, Fishing

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.459, Simon and Schuster

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• But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties.

  Robert Benchley

  Moving, Salary, Tasks

  Robert Benchley (1976). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, Amereon Limited

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• I just think of interesting roles to play. I guess that I have matured, I guess growing up and becoming a man, your taste in characters changes and I think I have become more interested in active characters as I have become less contemplative in my personal life. Things have become a little bit more interesting in the doing these days and less interesting in the thinking about the doing.

  Josh Hartnett

  Growing Up, Character, Men

  "Interview: Josh Hartnett Talks 30 Days Of Night". Interview with Joe Utichi, editorial.rottentomatoes.com. November 1, 2007.

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• If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives.

  Henri Nouwen

  Community, Essentials, Want

  Source: archives.wineskins.org

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• Sometimes people will think, I need to have pre-sanctioned spiritual joy. Getting joy from my contemplative meditation practice or getting joy from reading Thich Nhat Hahn books. Those things can be joyful but I think it’s the small, simple joys of playing with dogs or having sex with someone you love or going for a walk outside, stuff that we tend to ignore.

  Moby

  Spiritual, Dog, Sex

  "Moby | Inside the brain of a genius. Meditator. Vegan. Outlaw". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• We should all without shame enrol in the school of contemplative prayer.

  Richard J. Foster

  Prayer, School, Shame

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• I cannot imagine why my vision will have some value in the world..and yet I know it will..I think I will count because I am patient and recueilli (contemplative) in some degree.

  Gwen John

  Thinking, Vision, Degrees

  Mary Taubman, Gwen John (1985). “Gwen John”, Ashgate Publishing

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• You know, Monsieur, that, although the contemplative life is more perfect than the active life, it is not, however, more so than one which embraces at the same time contemplation and action, as does yours, by God's grace.

  Vincent de Paul

  Faith, Contemplative Life, Perfect

  Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1992). “Correspondence, conferences, documents”, New City Pr

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• The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Contemplative Life, Discovery

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.294, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Running, Women, Contemplative Life

  Gift from the Sea ch. 2 (1955)

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• One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.

  Sam Harris

  Buddhist, Taken, Civilization

  "Killing the Buddha". Shambhala Sun, March 2006.

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