Contemplation Quotes

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  That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Beauty, Beautiful, Intense

  Edgar Allan Poe, Gary Richard Thompson (1984). “Essays and Reviews”, p.78, Library of America

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  What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.

  Meister Eckhart

  Excellence, Soil, Action

  Meister Eckhart, Raymond Bernard Blakney (1941). “Celebrated 14th Century Mystic and Scholastic Meister Eckhart”

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• Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Inspiring, Meditation, Quiet

  Marian Wright Edelman (2013). “The Measure of our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours”, p.61, Beacon Press

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• The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

  Aristotle

  Life, Philosophical, Survival

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• The contemplation of beauty causes the soul to grow wings.

  Plato

  Beauty, Wings, Soul

  26 Copy quote
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  Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Inspiring, Travel, Thinking

  75 Copy quote

• Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Gratitude, Realization

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.1, New Directions Publishing

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• The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation combined with action.

  M. Scott Peck

  Action

  M. Scott Peck (2002). “The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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  I think a lot of contemplation happens in bathtubs. It does for me. Nothing like a hot bath to ease the tension and think about what's going to happen next.

  Sarah McLachlan

  Inspirational, Thinking, Hot

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• Better to illuminate than merely to shine; to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Powerful, Thoughtful, Love Is

  "Summa Theologica". Book by Thomas Aquinas (Part II-II, Question 188), 1485.

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• To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being.

  Thomas Merton

  Joy, Intuition, Levels

  "Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation".

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• What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

  Meister Eckhart

  Love, Men

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

  Robert McNamara

  Giving, Enough Time, Action

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• Work without contemplation is never enough.

  Douglas V. Steere

  Work, Garden, Religion

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• The first great thing is to find yourself and for that you need solitude and contemplation - at least sometimes. I can tell you deliverance will not come from the rushing noisy centers of civilization. It will come from the lonely places.

  Fridtjof Nansen

  Lonely, Civilization, Rushing

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• The power of quiet is great. It generates the same feelings in everything one encounters. It vibrates with the cosmic rhythm of oneness. It is everywhere, available to anyone at any time. It is us, the force within that makes us stable, trusting, and loving. It is contemplation contemplating. Peace is letting go - returning to the silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet.

  Malidoma Patrice Some

  Letting Go, Oneness, Rivers

  Malidoma Patrice Somé (1995). “Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman”, Penguin Books

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• It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.

  Rachel Carson

  Beauty, Nature, Humility

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• It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?

  Carl Sandburg

  Inspirational, Reflection, Men

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• Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

  Dodie Smith

  Luxury, Cost, Seems

  Dodie Smith (2012). “I Capture the Castle”, p.40, Random House

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• True art is made noble and religious by the mind producing it.

  Michelangelo

  Religious, Art, Mind

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• This Ariyan Eightfold Path, that is to say: Right view, right aim, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right contemplation.

  Gautama Buddha

  Views, Living Right, Effort

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• One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Passion, Boredom

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• Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Meditation, Doubt

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.12, New Directions Publishing

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• Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to contemplate what's working and what's not, so that we can make changes for the better.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Inspirational, Dream, Energy

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• Contemplation is a very dangerous activity. It not only brings us face to face with God. It brings us, as well, face to face with the world, face to face with the self. And then, of course, something must be done. Nothing stays the same once we have found the God within…. We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child.

  Joan D. Chittister

  Children, Heart, Self

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