Life Contemplation Quotes

#1. So many leaves have fallen on my life. Some settled nicely to rest, but most fell, withered to bitter cold and drifted on. But, after all that, I would brave all the coldness of humanity again for the sight of a few more beautiful yellow leaves falling on Aspen, and the birds....

E.S. Lehman

#2. A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days is fatal to human life.

Lewis Mumford

#3. Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.

William L. Shirer

#4. I am suggesting that we can and do regain eternity when we are so immersed in life, in moral action, or in aesthetic contemplation, that we completely forget about time and anxiety.

Don Cupitt

#5. My only stake was the hook I shot in the moon, trying to capture stardom on my way to heaven. Without bravado. Just footsteps plodding me along till my big show. My showstopper. The one where I landed in a place without gravity.

Juliet Castle

#6. I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life's mystery and unpredictability, of life's generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation.

Jane Smiley

#7. 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. (January 17)

Sarah Ban Breathnach

#8. You can't memorize poetry and stay a fake. Sooner or later, you start to understand what these poets are saying, and it makes you feel life has something quite special, with certain layers of meaning to it.

Donald Miller

#9. Furthermore, the apostolic life does not exclude contemplation but encompasses it and profits by it to know better the eternal truths it must proclaim

Vincent De Paul

#10. Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.

Wayne Dyer

#11. The human art form is in uniting fruitful activity with a contemplative stance, not one or the other, but always both at the same time.

Richard Rohr

#12. Learn to listen to subtle cues from your spirit instead of the barrage coming from your brain.

David Brazzeal

#13. A life of Wisdom must be a life of contemplation and action

M. Scott Peck

#14. Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.

Christian Morgenstern

#15. 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

#16. There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.

Lin Yutang

#17. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

Viktor E. Frankl

#18. An examined life, an enigmatic investigation of reality, is required in order for a person to realize a transcendent spiritual journey. A contemplative soul is bound to live life more intensely than someone whom is concerned exclusively with living an external existence.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#19. taking care of the tasks of life. We know we have found our balance when we are so deeply rooted in God that our activity is marked by the peaceful, joyful, rich quality of our contemplation.

Peter Scazzero

#20. In some mystical way, Lenny seemed to ennoble work more than anyone I had ever met"
Also in "Stories and Scripts:an Anthology

Zack Love

#21. He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Isaac Asimov

#22. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Henry David Thoreau

#23. Silence must be comprehended as not solely the absence of sound. It is the natural environment for serenity and contemplation. Life without silence is life without privacy. The difference between sanity and madness is the quality of our thoughts. Silence is on the side of sanity.

Norman Cousins

#24. The notion of education through handicrafts rises from the contemplation of truth and love permeating life's activities.

Mahatma Gandhi

#25. Bulgakov always loved clowning and agreed with E. T. A. Hoffmann that irony and buffoonery are expressions of 'the deepest contemplation of life in all its conditionality

Mikhail Bulgakov

#26. I'm having the time of my life figuring out this next move.

John Mayer

#27. Do not contemplate on death; it is just an incident in life; contemplate on God, who is the master of all life.

Sathya Sai Baba

#28. No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.

Saint Augustine

#29. Just as we believe by faith that the greatest happiness of the next life consists simply in the contemplation of this divine majesty, likewise we experience that we derive the greatest joy of which we are capable in this life from the same contemplation, even though it is much less perfect.

Rene Descartes

#30. To contemplation's sober eye,
Such is the race of man;
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began,
Alike the busy and the gay,
But flutter through life's little day.

Thomas Gray

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

Josef Pieper

#32. Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle - even though it cannot be solved - is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine.

Tom Robbins

#33. Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

Russell M. Nelson

#34. I have created a life style that supports contemplation, service to words.

Bell Hooks

#35. The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is Possible.

Gabriel Marcel

#36. Silence may be something unusual for her - and it could take time for her to adjust to the possibilities silence provides.

Linda Lantieri

#37. A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul.

Thomas Hardy

#38. The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.

David Hume

#39. It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.

Bertrand Russell

#40. I have often thought with wonder of the great goodness of God; and my soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever! For I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires.

Saint Teresa Of Avila

#41. So in life, some enter the services of fame and others money, but the best choice is that of those few who spend their time in the contemplation of nature, and as lovers of wisdom.

Pythagoras

#42. Contemplation and writing demand solitude, which leads to a sorry feeling of isolation and detachment. Writers try to call their loneliness genius, and the world believes them most of the time.

Anthony Marais

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

M. Scott Peck

#44. My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place [cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison] taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never, therefore, make any progress.

Anwar Sadat

#45. Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity.

Thomas Merton

#46. The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

William Penn

#47. In order to contemplate, one must have something to contemplate. A life without experience provides no chance of contemplation. Those who have not lived cannot mediate om the mysterious of life.

Anthony Ryan

#48. True contemplation is reflecting on the blessings of God in your life.

Harold Klemp

#49. We can reach untainted experiential freedom, by living in the moment as it is - without contemplation. Here we find the possibility of freedom - of just being - living as our authentic self. We are our true nature. We are one and whole.

Jacqueline Simon Gunn

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

Aristotle.

#51. The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love. Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act of cognition, in seeing, in intuition, in contemplation.

Josef Pieper

#52. Let us not fear our wild thoughts for they can give rise to wondrous contemplation, creative endeavour, life changing ideas, momentous bliss.

Jay Woodman

#53. The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it's having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.

Paul Bowles

#54. Without meditation, contemplation and skillful action, the anger lurking in your mind can become
the (d)anger within your life."

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev)

Leonard Perlmutter

#55. Life isn't memorable enough to remember everything. It's not like there are explosions all the time, or dog smoking cigarettes.

Donald Miller

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

Nicolas Chamfort

#57. Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food - the way to get life out of it

Tryon Edwards

#58. Repose is the secret of all contemplation and meditation, the secret of getting in tune with that aspect of life which is the essence of all things. When one is not accustomed to take repose, one does not know what is behind one's being.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

#59. 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

#60. Some are slaves of ambition or money, but others are interested in understanding life itself. These give themselves the name of philosophers , and they value the contemplation and discovery of nature beyond all other pursuits.

Pythagoras

#61. Music is the mediator between the life of the senses and the life of the spirit.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

#62. 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

#63. Personal tranquility consists in the orderly structuring of the mind, which occurs whenever a person engages in the exquisite practice of contemplating personal experiences, harmonizing time spent with other people, reading great books, and working on self-improvement.

Kilroy J. Oldster

#64. Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.

John Cowper Powys

#65. Christianity is more than just a belief; it is a life of discipline, a firm determination to live a life of prayer and contemplation, a life of self-denial and Christlikeness.

Ramon M. Torres

#66. There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.

William Golding

#67. The human brain is fascinating; we will forget a scent until we smell it again, we will erase a voice from our memory until we hear it again,and even emotions that seemed buried forever will be awakened when we return to the same place.

Paulo Coelho

#68. What does the anticipation feel like? The sensation of staring into the void, the awareness of an end's impending arrival? Burning and being extinguished simultaneously?

Teo Yi Han

#69. Places grow to have meaning in your life from experience, from the process of connecting. The inevitable contemplation of commemorative tattoos follows.

Al Burian

#70. Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.

George Santayana

#71. No reprimand in the mirror
Slow walk to Liberia
Slow dance across the Sahara
Slow unraveling of gray matter

Mellon Black

#72. Contemplation, rather than action; that seemed to be my lot in life, and I was ashamed of it even as I craved it.

Melanie Benjamin

#73. Life was not given for indolent contemplation and study of self, nor for brooding over emotions of piety: Actions and actions only determine the worth.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

#74. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides.

Anonymous

#75. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it.

Guy Debord

#76. Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.

Henri J.M. Nouwen

#77. I don't want a "holy" life of prayer and contemplation. I want a life of strife, lust, striving, seeking, struggling, and debauchery.

Damien Echols

#78. Humor may be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life, and the artistic expression thereof.

Stephen Leacock

#79. There have been hours in my unhappy life, many of them, when the contemplation of death as the end of earthly sorrow - of the grave as a resting place for the tired and worn out body - has been pleasant to dwell upon.

Solomon Northup

#80. Some people are incapable of perceiving in the object of their contemplation the very thing that gives it its intrinsic life and breath,

Muriel Barbery

#81. Each human being was given two possibilities: action and contemplation. Both lead to the same place.

Paulo Coelho

#82. My life will always have dirty dishes. If this sink can become a place of contemplation, let me learn constancy here.

Gunilla Brodde Norris

#83. I decided years ago that if I'm going to keep teaching contemplation, then the last years of my life should be contemplative.

Richard Rohr

#84. Awakening of intelligence into awareness,
Contemplation and realization is the sole purpose of #life.

Gian Kumar

#85. Death showed up in my life very early on, so I'm aware of it. If you look at most of the things I write there's a sort of contemplation of mortality - although 'True Blood' doesn't fall into that. Even though there's such a ridiculously high body count!

Alan Ball