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Contemplation Quotes

Browse 1219 quotes about Contemplation.

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Contemplation Quotes

“When love has carried us above all things ... we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, if it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, and an intuition of Eternity? We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold; because our being, without losing anything of its own personality, is united with the Divine Truth.”

IfsLightUnitedDivinePersonalityLosingAll ThingsEternityInfiniteIntuitionContemplation
Author:John of Ruysbroeck
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“To believe a thing is to see the cool crystal water sparkling in the cup. But to meditate on it is to drink of it. Reading gathers the clusters; contemplation squeezes forth their generous juice.”

BelieveReadingWaterDrinkCupsGenerousContemplationJuiceCrystalsSparklingClusters
Book:Spurgeon at His Best: Over 2200 Striking Quotations from the World's Most Exhaustive and Widely-read Sermon Series
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“Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation.”

MenArtUsedPassionObjectsPaintingMusic IsArchitectureContemplationSculptureMan And Nature
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
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“One form of prayer moves us particularly to take up the task of evangelization and to seek the good of others: it is the prayer of intercession. Let us peer for a moment into the heart of Saint Paul, to see what his prayer was like. It was full of people: "...I constantly pray with you in every one of my prayers for all of you... because I hold you in my heart" (Phil 1:4, 7). Here we see that intercessory prayer does not divert us from true contemplation, since authentic contemplation always has a place for others.”

PeopleHeartDoeMomentsMovingFormPrayerPrayingMy HeartTasksSaintContemplationPeersIntercessionIntercessory PrayerSaint Paul
Author:Pope Francis
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“When you are in doubt, wait. Fall back on the contemplation of your vision, and increase your faith and purpose. And by all means, in times of doubt and indecision, cultivate gratitude.”

MeanPurposeFallWaitingVisionDoubtGratitudeIncreaseContemplationFall BackIndecision
Book:Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection – 10 Books in One Volume: The Science of Getting Rich, The Science of Being Well, The Science of Being Great, How to Get What You Want and more: From one of the New Thought pioneers, author of Making of the Man Who Can or How to Promote Yourself and New Science of Living and Healing or Health Through New Thought and Fasting
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“The manager-leader of the future should combine in one personality the robust, realistic quality of the man of action with the insight of the artist, the religious leader, the poet, who explains man to himself. The man of action alone or the man of contemplation alone will not be enough; these two qualities together are required.”

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Author:David Lilienthal
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“Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such the autonomous movement of non-life.”

WorldWayRealityLife IsLostCommonForeverMovementObjectsExpressionHighestAspectUnityTendenciesFormerContemplationStreamsDeceitConcreteDeceivingDetachedPseudoAutonomousAspects Of LifeGeneralitiesSpecializationWorlds ApartInversions
Book:The Society of the Spectacle
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“When we are clear enough about our own point of view, we can find help in the methods of Eastern Christianity or in the ways of the Far East, perhaps by consulting the I Ching or through mandala contemplation; we may even find help in the ways of shamanism or Islam. If we are clear about where we stand and the direction we must take, such methods may be useful in order to follow our own way to the end.”

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Book:The Other Side of Silence: Meditation for the Twenty-First Century
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“Contemplation: I read a lot of books on philosophy and religion, and try to keep always growing in that part of my life, because without having a spiritual grounding, I think you can get really swayed by the winds of all the praise or the criticism; it's all very, kind of, up and down. Try to stay up and focused.”

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Author:Kimbra
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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.”

StillsHumanitySpeakPrayerSilenceBreakOur LivesBecomingDisciplineHolyActivityDown AndNoiseContemplationStoppingSlow DownRemindingBreak ThroughSlowingGod's Presence
Author:Jim Wallis
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“We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, 'Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?' involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble.”

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Book:Mostly Harmless
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“You cannot grow in the integrative dance of action and contemplation without a strong tolerance for ambiguity, an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety, and a willingness to not know-and not even need to know. This ever widens and deepens your perspective. This is how you allow and encounter Mystery and move into the contemplative zone.”

KnowsNeedsActionMovingCertainStrongGrowsAbilityMysteryPerspectiveDegreesAnxietyForgivingToleranceContemplationEncountersZoneWillingnessAmbiguityContemplative
Author:Richard Rohr
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“We're certainly not perfect, and we're not probably even better than anybody else, except that perhaps we are given to certain kinds of contemplation that provide a valuable balance to the knee-jerk reactionary behavior of most of our newspapers and political leaders. Poets are great doubters.”

KindPoliticalCertainGivenPerfectLeaderPoetBalanceBehaviorValuableNewspapersKneesContemplationNot PerfectJerkReactionariesPolitical LeadersDoubters
Author:Sam Hamill
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“What it does remind us is that 'God' is not to be separated from the quest for the Kingdom of God and is not and cannot be the object of any detached 'scientific' contemplation. Heidegger's critique of onto-theology is also driving a wedge between speaking of God and the aims of science - not so as to get rid of God but rather to free God from a false objectification.”

DoeObjectsAimDrivingTheologyKingdomsContemplationQuestsKingdom Of GodCritiqueDetachedObjectificationWedgesHeidegger
Author:George Pattison
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“If contemplation of other people's pain just increases distress, then I think we should see it in another way. If we don't center too much on ourselves, then [we] increase our courage and our determination to remedy the pain, not our distress. If we have unconditional compassion, then it increases our courage. So that's the difference, self-centered motivation versus altruistic motivation.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayShouldSelfPainMotivationDifferencesCompassionToo MuchDeterminationIncreaseContemplationRemedyDistressVersusUnconditionalAnother WaySelf Centered
Author:Matthieu Ricard
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“The language of cinema as it has evolved has also excluded vast swathes of human experience. The forms we find in the process of making a film can start to redress this balance and venture into uncharted territory. This is not just about unsung identities but about the subtleties and nuances of contemplation, the drifting spaces in which the worlds of the very small and the very large collide. Camerawork is a part of that.”

WorldHumansFilmFormLanguageProcessSpaceIdentityBalanceCinemaContemplationTerritoryVentureHuman ExperienceSubtletyNuanceDriftingExcludedCollideUnchartedRedressUncharted Territory
Author:Sally Potter
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“The source of inspiration can be any of the things:deep emotional experiences - say, romantic love or spiritual contemplation.I think such rare moments come only when you have total concentration. You are consumed in and by the music. I guess you could say that it is akin to contemplation. In order to reach this desirable state of mind you have to rise above the environment you're in at that particular time - a bad piano, glaring stage lights, or the attitude of the audience. Sometimes the inspiration of the other musicians you're playing with helps you reach this stage.”

ThinkingMindSometimesMomentsHelpingInspirationSpiritualAttitudeAudienceEnvironmentEmotionalMusicianContemplationConcentrationState Of MindRomantic LoveRise Above
Author:Dave Brubeck
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“I want to yell about it most days and stop strangers in the street to share my outrage. But my mind is too serpentine to offer instant poem reactions. I can however stand back and examine the deeper ground, or at least that's what I hope my poems are doing. I believe contemplation can be an ethical act and literature can be a profound agent of cultural change, so I hope in some way my poems expand the conversations about environmental decline and social responsibility.”

MindBelieveLiteratureI BelieveResponsibilityShareProfoundEnvironmentalStrangerInstantContemplationEthicalSocial Responsibility
Author:Robin Beth Schaer
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