#contemplation

Contemplative prayer is natural, unprogrammed; it is perpetual openness to God, so that in the openness his concerns can flow in and out of our minds as he wills. ↗

— Ray Simpson

#christianity #contemplation #contemplative-prayer #god #nature

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. ↗

— Diane Arbus

#contemplation #cutting #cutting edge #edge #grasped

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. ↗

— Jean Arp

#after #back #contemplation #day #devices

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

#contemplation #had #his #known #life

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

— William Golding

#fire #life #life

As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#accurately #after #animal #before #bone

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. ↗

— René Descartes

#faith #joy #experience

I feel like I'm stepping into a place of spiritual contemplation every time I enter a studio; it's always had a certain magic to me that has never worn off with familiarity. ↗

— David Knopfler

#certain #contemplation #enter #every #every time

Historically, China is not a nation of sportsmen. We traditionally put more emphasis on being close to nature than pushing endlessly to excel. A philosophy that values tranquil contemplation of the landscape cannot easily be adapted to the Olympic slogan of 'higher, stronger, faster.' ↗

— Ai Weiwei

#being #cannot #china #close #contemplation

Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#age