Contemplative Life Quotes

• 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

  People, Honey, Jars

  Elizabeth Janeway (1964). “Accident”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible.

  Gabriel Marcel

  Wise, Running, Men

  36 Copy quote
• 

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

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Inspiring, Travel, Thinking

  75 Copy quote

• The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Contemplation, Contemplative

  7 Copy quote

• For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Men, Order, Needs

  Saint Thomas Aquinas, Catholic Way Publishing (2014). “The Summa Theologica: Complete Edition”, p.2558, Catholic Way Publishing

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Running, Children, House

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2010). “Gift from the Sea”, p.21, Random House

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Discovery, Unexpected

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

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I admire people who are suited to the contemplative life. They can sit inside themselves like honey in a jar and just be. It's wonderful to have someone like that around, you always feel you can count on them. You can go away and come back, you can change your mind and your hairdo and your politics, and when you get through doing all these upsetting things, you look around and there they are, just the way they were, just being.

  Elizabeth Janeway

  People, Upset, Mind

  Elizabeth Janeway (1964). “Accident”

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you were going to be attracted to a mystical faith which involved the contemplative life, Buddhism would be quite reasonable. But then, not everybody is a budding mystic. In fact, it's pretty certain that very few people are. So another kind of religion, one that was perhaps more pragmatic and service-oriented, might appeal to those others. So I think you have to take your values into account.

  Ninian Smart

  Buddhism, Thinking, People

  Source: www.scottlondon.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man's activity consists in either a making or doing. Both of these aspects of the active life depend for their correction upon the contemplative life (that is, the Hero).

  Ananda Coomaraswamy

  Life, Hero, Men

  15 Copy quote

• Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end - and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life, I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough; in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement.

  Bernadette Roberts

  Journey, Self, Silence

  Bernadette Roberts “Experience of No-Self, The: A Contemplative Journey, Revised Edition”, SUNY Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all animals, he alone attains to the Contemplative Life.

  Andrew Lang

  Cat, Animal, Pet

  4 Copy quote

• 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, Appearance, Contemplation

  8 Copy quote

• 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, Hands, Two

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even the contemplative life is only an effort, Nora my dear, to hide the body so the feet won’t stick out.

  Djuna Barnes

  Feet, Effort, Body

  Djuna Barnes, Thomas Stearns Eliot (2006). “Nightwood”, p.143, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for contemplation in the practice of the active life, while those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life so as to become yet.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Practice, Contemplation, Adapted

  St Thomas Aquinas (2013). “Summa Theologica, Volume 4 (Part III, First Section)”, p.1940, Cosimo, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the habit-forming luxuries which get such a hold on men today. I do not say that to be a contemplative one absolutely has to go without smoking or without alcohol, but certainly one must be able to use these things without being dominated by an uncontrolled need for them.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Self, Luxury

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.86, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon "that" which remains when it is gone. But this going-out is an upheaval, a complete turnabout of such proportions it cannot possibly be missed, under-emphasized, or sufficiently stressed as a major landmark in the contemplative life.

  Bernadette Roberts

  Fall, Self, Stressed

  Bernadette Roberts (1993). “The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey”, p.13, SUNY Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Running, Women, Creative

  Gift from the Sea ch. 2 (1955)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In Radical Optimism, Beatrice Bruteau sets forth a deep and shining vision of spirituality, one that guides the reader into the contemplative life and the very root of our being. Dr. Bruteau is a philosopher of great measure whose work should be required reading for all who seek the deepest truth about themselves.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Reading, Roots, Optimism

  4 Copy quote

• In the active life all the vices are first of all to be removed by the practice of good works, so that in the contemplative life a man may, with now purified mental gaze, pass on to the contemplation of the Divine Light.

  Isidore of Seville

  Men, Light, Practice

  33 Copy quote

• One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.

  Thomas Merton

  Law, Down And, Bears

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Temptation, Statues

  Thomas Merton (1998). “Contemplation in a World of Action: Second Edition, Restored and Corrected”, p.176, University of Notre Dame Pess

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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, Perfect, Grace

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source