Quotes About Contemplative Life

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

#4. The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live.

Nicolas Chamfort

#5. Living in the moment is great, but there's something uniquely powerful about the contemplative life. I think if we slowed down enough to think about what we say, consider the consequences of our actions and reactions, the world would be a better place.

Nicole Baart

#6. 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

#7. He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like.

Derek Jacobi

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

Djuna Barnes

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

Andrew Lang

#10. 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

#11. the contemplative life not only does not exclude, but requires, the active life.

Peter Kreeft

#12. To praise the contemplative life is not to reject every other form of life, but to seek a solid foundation for every other human striving. Without

Thomas Merton

#13. I live a very secluded life, a very contemplative life and a very meditative one. That is my ideal life.

Alice Walker

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

Thomas Merton

#15. Here we discover the paradox of the contemplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others.

Kathleen Norris

#16. 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

#17. 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

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

Thomas Merton

#19. 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.

Thomas Merton

#20. Developing the cognitive control that leads to a more contemplative Christian life is the key to living as free men and women in post-Christian America. The man whose desires are under the control of his reason is free. The man who does whatever occurs to him is a slave. Untold

Rod Dreher

#21. In my personal life, I am very contemplative.

Antonio Banderas

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

David Brazzeal

#23. Letter writing allows us to be alone yet connected. We need a certain amount of solitude in order to have true ideas to communicate. But few of us desire solitude all the time ... Yet solitude is what makes us contemplative and receptive, more aware of life's gifts and our own special blessings.

Alexandra Stoddard

#24. 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

#25. It seems to me that I have greater peace and am close to God when I am not "trying to be a contemplative," or trying to be anything special, but simply orienting my life fully and completely towards what seems to be required of a man like me at a time like this.

Thomas Merton

#26. It's these little things, they can pull you under
Live your life filled with joy and wonder
I always knew this altogether thunder
Was lost in our little lives

R.E.M Sweetness Follows

#27. Too, if you're a true contemplative, your life and words will overflow with spiritual wisdom, compassion, and fruitful insight, because you're sure to measure out what you say carefully and calmly, eschewing lies and speaking without the shrill pretense of hypocrites.

Anonymous

#28. Kind of prayer we here speak of as properly "monastic" (though it may also fit into the life of any lay person who is attracted to it) is a prayer of silence, simplicity, contemplative and meditative unity, a deep personal integration in an attentive, watchful listening of "the heart.

Thomas Merton

#29. Opportunities are rare in this life, and fairness, rarer still. So, when you discover a fair opportunity, go after as if it were your last because it very well might be.

Joel T. McGrath

#30. A contemplative is not one who takes his prayer seriously, but one who takes God seriously, who is famished for truth, who seeks to live in generous simplicity, in the spirit. An ardent and sincere humility is the best protection for his life of prayer.

Thomas Merton

#31. 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

#32. 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

#33. There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.

Brother Lawrence

#34. Introspection, or 'sitting in the silence,' is an unscientific way of trying to force apart the mind and senses, tied together by the life force. The contemplative mind, attempting its return to divinity, is constantly dragged back toward the senses by the life currents.

Paramahansa Yogananda

#35. 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

#36. My goats are not contemplative, accepting, or introspective. They are the Greek chorus of my farm, sometimes of my life. They watch me closely and remind me that I am foolish.

Jon Katz

#37. A life of feminine submission, of 'contemplative purity,' is a life of silence, a life that has no pen and no story, while a life of female rebellion, of 'significant action,' is a life that must be silenced, a life whose monstrous pen tells a terrible story.

Sandra M. Gilbert

#38. Life is a deep and contemplative story stuck on repeat. love, loss, self-destruction, self-discovery

Pete Wentz